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March 31, 2008
Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana--Anne Rice
Ms. Rice has produced yet another magnificent meditation on the Life of Christ. This book deals with the period just prior to the beginning of the public Ministry. As such, many of the incidents of the book are fictional recreations--meditations as it were on the Life of Christ in novel form.
While I really enjoyed, in fact, loved the first book, I greatly admire the skill and beauty of this second in the series. What Ms. Rice does with such aplomb is to give us a vision of the "second" side of Christ's sacrifice for us. In fact, she kind of opens our eyes to it. Christ not only did things for us, there were things He DID NOT do, all for us as well. And Ms. Rice deftly demonstrates the cost. For example, we have all read the word, "The foxes have their holes and the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." What could this mean? Do we think He couldn't go to His mother's house and have a place to stay? Surely not. Then what are we to make of it? Anne Rice tells us--Jesus, though fully human and subject to all human desires, needs, and temptations, never takes a wife. This is NOT because He is not interested, but rather because it cannot be for reasons The DaVinci Code makes perfectly clear.
The book starts with a particularly ugly crowd incident in which two young boys are stoned to death because other boys accused them of homosexual involvement. Anne uses this to help us reflect on the fact that Jesus is a 30 year old man in a society that expects no bachelor uncles or unmarried men. This is a society that takes very seriously the Lord's injunction to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth." And here is a man who will have nothing of it. What are we to make of Him? James, his step-brother makes it quite clear when he compares Jesus to these young boys.
Throughout the story, we see Jesus, now older and subject to the expectations and anticipations of the society in which He lives, defying that society in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. He isn't married. He doesn't join the young men in their march on Caesarea. He has an awful lot of female friends, etc.
As the story progresses, we approach events we all know and understand from the Gospels. Here Ms. Rice makes some choices the some may take exception to in the ordering of the miracles He performs, for example. She choses the Gospel of Matthew as the "spine" of her story and presents the chronology there with additions from John, etc. And for those who didn't care for "speculation" in the first book, they may still find something to object to here--but that goes with the realm of fiction.
But we should be very careful. While Anne Rice is not writing a biography of Jesus, she has written something more than a piece of fiction. This work is like an extended lectio, a writerly meditation on the Life of Christ which she shares with the whole world As such, it seeks an understanding of Jesus and of His interior life that is only possible through deep reading and reflection on what we already know and through prayer. In a sense, the book is a kind of prayer, and extended and extensive meditation on Jesus and coming to and understanding of who He is and just what His life means. As such, Ms. Rice has done more than a thousand scholarly dissertations can do for some of us. I have read countless faithful and faith-filled biographies of Jesus and have not encountered some of the insights that I derived from this book. For that, I owe deepest thanks and appreciation to Ms. Rice. She opened my eyes to a dimension I never really gave much thought to--the Life of Christ as ongoing and willing sacrifice to bring the world to God. In giving up the woman He has come to love because it does not fit into the scheme of what He must do, He shows the ideal man bringing His passions into alignment with God's will. Jesus lives not so much for Himself, but for every person He encounters (all of us).
Add to all of these features supple and controlled prose that occasionally approaches the poetic, and you have a superb novel. I marked out three passages as examples of simplicity and power:
(I don't think there are any spoilers/surprises here, but read at your own risk.)
from Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Anne RiceI held up my hands.
"We're made in His image, you and I," I said. "This is flesh, is it not? Am I not a man? Baptize me as you've done everyone else; do this, in the name of righteousness."
I went down into the water. I felt his hand on my left shoulder. I belt his fingers close on my neck. I saw nothing and felt nothing and heard nothing but the cool flooding water, and then slowly I came up out of it, and stood, shocked by the flood of sunlight.
The clouds above had shifted. The sound of beating wings filled my ears. I stared forward and saw across John's face the shadow of a dove moving upwards--and then I saw the bird itself rising into a great opening of deep blue sky and I heard a whisper against my ears, a whisper that penetrated the sound of the wings, as though a pair of lips had touched both ears at the same time, and as faint as it was, soft and secretive as it was, it seemed the edge of an immense echo.
This is my Son, this is my beloved.
All the riverbank had gone quiet.
Then noise. The old familiar noise. (pp. 176-177)
[Satan Speaking]
"Since you seem at best to be a sometime prophet," he went on in the same calm voice, my voice, "let me give you the picture. It was in a toll collector's tent that he breathed his last, and in a toll collector's arms, can you imagine, though his son sat nearby and your mother wept. And do you know how he spent his last few hours? Recounting to the toll collector and anyone else who happened to hear all he could remember of your birth--oh, you know the old song about the angel coming to your poor terrified mother, and the long trek to Bethlehem so that you might come howling into the world in the midst of the worst weather, and then the visit of the angels on high to shepherds, of all people, and those men. The Magi. He told the toll colleftor about their coming as well. And then he died, raving, you might say, only softly so. (p. 187)
I heard the flapping, the fluttering, the muffled beating of wings. All over me came the soft touch as if of hands, countless gentle hands, the even softer brush of lips--lips against my cheeks, my forehead, my parched eyelids. It seemed I was lost in a lovely weightless drift of song that had replaced the wind without true sound. And it carried me gently downwards; it embraced me; it ministered to me.
"No," I said. "No."
It became weeping now, this singing. It was pure and sad, yet irresistibly sweet. It had the immensity of joy. And there came more urgently these tender fingers, brushing my face and my burnt arms.
"No," I said, "I will do this. Leave me now. I will do it, as I've said."
I slipped away from them, or they spread out as soundlessly as they'd come, and rose and moved away in all directions, releasing me.
Alone again. [p. 200]
I've chosen three passages from near the end of the novel, and yet, I could have chosen any number of others. Ms. Rice has such fine-tuned control and such masterly rhythm and pattern that this could almost be poetry.
I've said before that we owe it to ourselves, to our Church, and to the world to support writers who support the faith. But more than that, we owe it to ourselves to support such works of fiction if we desire to see publishers print more such in the future. We owe it to ourselves to lavish the gift of such writing on the world (and incidentally ourselves) over and over again. Get this book from the library and read it. Better, go out and buy it and share it with others.
The two books of this saga will be for a long time on my list of favored gifts for those who know and love the Lord and for those who are beginning an acquaintance and do not yet really know who He is. Ms. Rice serves as a fine guide for those who dare not attempt the Gospels themselves. If these books could cause one-tenth the excitement, one-tenth the uproar of DVC, then they serve well the purposes of those about Whom they are written.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Samuel's Compositions
Music is his language.
Sam's music teacher scheduled an extra lesson with him to transcribe his newest composition. Apparently she strove gallantly to do so, but she was tripped up by it's complexity and couldn't figure out how to represent part of the composition in notation. He'll be performing it in his next recital. I'm thinking that we're going to have to do a little legwork and see what other help we can get him/what other help we can afford. (The two are, unfortunately, not one in the same.) He's amazingly talented but amazingly undisciplined. To have two fairly formal compositions before age 9 has to be a impressive feat, so how do I make certain that it is properly supported?
If y'all have any suggestions, I would be open to hearing them. In the meantime, I'm just so pleased. I hope to record his two compositions so far and put them up on my x-drive. When I do so, I'll see if I can make them public and steer you all in that direction, or I'll post links here if that can be managed.
I'm so pleased for him and so pleased for us to be blessed with such a talented and generally pleasant child. I complain so much about so many things, it is important to note that in all of the important ones, God has blessed me beyond measure.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 1, 2008
More Cayo Hueso
Bahia Honda
When I try to see,
to match that blue that
eludes me, that sea
melting into sky--
when I try to see
it, become lost in
it, wear it ribbon-
like on my clothes. I
hear then the sound of
it, smell the smell it
makes. I see the sun
the clouds, the loose strife
of it broken on
the beach bench, stranding
the red-brown algae.
And wonder at seas
that hold so much brown
being, alone so
blue.Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another Poem [Cayo Hueso]
Fort Jefferson
The world changed that day when the white rock shifted
and became the small shell of a turbaned
snail, harsh in sunlight against the red brick.Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Untitled Poem [Cayo Hueso]
These clouds move with this wind
and their motion moves and
changes all the changes
they have made. What are they
that their change can make what
we see different? We
see in a new way, see
as we are meant to, as
we must if we wish to
know what cannot be known.
All changed by lax clouds, all
that we known is unknown
even by us, even
by those so near us, by
those who would love us, those
who would hate us, all who
touch us, whom we all touch.Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cloud of Unknowing
The first part of this poem appeared earlier:
Unknowing
And so I move from knowing
to unknowing--not merely ignorance
but undoing the knowing I have
untying the knots and staring underneath
at what cannot be known once it is known.When you choose to unknow
you cannot. It comes upon you
as a gift,the promise of bliss
that unmakes what you have known--
makes holes in what is
through which light might shine.But the gift is two-edged
and what is unknown
breaks the links between things
known. Knowledge leaks out
mystery seeps in.Our broken knowledge
is the gift of humility,
it isn't forgetting--a loss,
and absence. It is a secret
unraveling, a complete undoing.Not passive, not receding
prominent and pointed
as the needle that breaches
the fabric, making holes
that let us know what is real.Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
On Reading The Portrait of a Lady
Henry James is one of those writers who seems to be four or five or six different writers depending on when the work you are reading was written. There is an evolution of complexity and theme and intent throughout his work and in the first great work of the "middle period," there is a command of style, language, character, and incident that yields both a lovely and luxurious prose and a novel of high drama if of little incident.
from The Portrait of a Lady
Henry JamesHe was far from the time when he had found it hard that he should be obliged to give up the idea of distinguishing himself, an idea none the less importunate for being vague and not the less delightful for having to struggle in the same breast with bursts of inspiring self-criticism. His friends at present judged him more cheerful and attributed it to a theory, over which they shook their heads knowingly, that he would recover his health. His serenity was but the array of wild flowers niched in his ruin.
And again, something not often associated with James, humor:
Of their opinions Isabel was never very definitely informed; but it may interest the reader ro know that while they had recognised in the late Mr. Archer a remarkably handsome head and a very taking manner (indeed, as one of them had said, he was always taking something), they had declared that he was making a very poor use of his life.
And from a conversation between Ralph Touchett and his mother:
"No, I don't think I pity her. She doesn't strike me as inviting compassion. I think I envy her. Before being sure, however, give me a hint of where you see your duty."
"In showing her four European countries--I shall leave her the choice of two of them--and in giving her the opportunity of perfecting herself in French, which she already knows very well."
Ralph frowned a little. "That sounds rather dry--even allowing her the choice of two countries."
Block by block and word by careful word, the sentences pile up together to erect an edifice, a carefully constructed picture of a person and a personality. As in Daisy Miller, the first impression is of someone somewhat brash and perhaps a little (in the terms of the day) "saucy," but definitely of interest. We know, of course, that the end, foreshadowed in the beginning by Mr. and Mrs. Touchett's marriage, is not likely to be a happy one--the reader is nevertheless compelled down the avenue paved by such rich bricks to discover not only what happens but who Isabel Archer is.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:04 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 2, 2008
Continuing Cayo Hueso
Mortality
I carry this decay in my body
a sign of its destruction and the source
of my uneasy delight.
As I chart its progress
I see how what is outside
reflects what's within. No sign that this
may be a sickness unto death,
a small discomfort, a little pain
a swelling, a redness, the sweet
throbbing--almost bliss--that is the warning
not all is well. And I have within
my power, the ability to change
this, at least postpone what will be
awhile. And yet, frozen, I do nothing.Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Today's Cayo Hueso again
From a recent trip:
Boston Cobblestones
The narrow way between
the Oyster House and the Bell-in-Hand
is paved with cobbles that knew
and shaped the first streets here.I step on the same stones that bore
the weight of independence; that
carried those who planned
to tan the sea with British tea.And in the misty too cool
evening it is easy to see that
they walk here still--that what we are
and what we have was given to us
from the hands of ghosts
who linger here to remind us
of the meaning that is beyond us.Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:44 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack