G. K. Chesterton: “Christmas Poem”

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost — how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wife’s tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Taking part in the Conversation

"Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before.You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

It is from this ‘unending conversation’ that the materials of your drama arise."


— Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (1941)

Strange Fragments

I discovered these lines, tucked between my copy of CS Lewis' "Letters to an American Lady." They were written, I think, a little before this time last year. From memory I'd just come out of the final CU Planning Days Meeting for the year. The late afternoon sun shone as bright as midday, and I was walking briskly to a dinner appointment with a friend.

Sylvia Plath says that "everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise" - I do believe I need some improvisation to make this work ... Perhaps some guts too!

So here's the bald unvarnished scribblings. They're a bit weird. A strange disembodiment, popping up a year later: out of context, and late in time.

What do you think?

*********

Here you sit
An elbow's distance away
I can touch your starched cotton wrists
Should I wish to reach

The sun warm our faces -
A near-perfect, halcyon day
The traffic dulls our senses
And your eyes dart
from face to face

(But never rest upon my face)

Question after question
You ask after my heart
My tongue seems to have struck rock
wedged between teeth and fear

You call me amazingly reserved
Yet I cannot fathom your face
No trace of blood nor flesh
Only chiseled holes
Where eyes, nose, mouth
And expression should be

So we have but words

Words choked by heads too hard
Words rooted in barren ground
Words that breathe dust
And endure still

Look to the lilies

It had come upon me, gradually, but with increasing force (and attendant anxiety), that I won't have a job next year. And so for the last few weeks, I've been worrying about money. It isn't so much that I want a tremendous amount, I say, but just enough to pay the rent and food, and have a little left over for emergencies. And of course, it isn't about the money itself, but avoiding the sense of shame that would wash over me, were the end of month to arrive, and I couldn't amass enough to pay rent.

So it floored me when I read the following confession from CS Lewis:

I'm a panic-y person about money myself (which is a most shameful confession and a thing dead against Our Lord's words) and poverty frightens me more than anything else except large spiders and the tops of cliffs: one is sometimes even tempted to say that if God wanted us to live like the lilies of the field He might have given us an organism more like theirs!

These seem fairly incongruous statements, until you realise that the man who said those words also gave two-thirds of his income away, and even then was not satisfied with the extent of his charities.

*********************

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
- Jesus.

Three Patiences

One must have 3 Patiences: patience with God, patience with one's neighbour and patience with oneself. - CS Lewis.

What I carry in my pockets

Today I discovered the old Hasidic saying that each of us should carry around two pieces of paper, one in each pocket. One piece of paper says "I am but dust and ashes": this is what I read when I'm feeling proud and self-important. But when I'm feeling worthless or ashamed, I read the other piece of paper, which says: "For me the world was created."

(With thanks to http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2010/10/giveaway-butterflyfish-great-and-small.html)

An introspective string of words (Not again!)

Like a patient I come to you
Like a doctor you diagnose me

Introvert? Extrovert?
Intuitive, A Feeler

Likes to keep her options open
Must be a Perceiver.

Ahh yes...

You've worked me out now.

Placed ticks in boxes
Chalked up the score

Pin me up
Like a recipe, a list

A judgment pre-made.

But these letters, these percentages
This definition of me

What do they know of ...

Cool linoneum on hot dusty feet

The lifting of heart
When seeing a kite
straining against the wind

The blood sizzling in the brain
At an idea

winding its way through airless tunnels
straining for words
the breath of life

The jump in the pit of the stomach
Upon sighting a small bird at one's feet
Fearless

What does they know of ...

Weeping that doesn't stop
with the coming of dawn?

Does it remember the barely audible roar
Like a beast in pain

The quaking within
What can you do with this humanly beast

Does it know of the waiting
Waiting for the remaking

Grant me death
So that in the drowning of life
A new creature might begin

There will come a time
When this brokenness will no longer contain

When the sunlight shall stream through my veins

I will not be contained


I will hold on
I will wait

My favourite blog of 2010

Alright. I've been keeping this hidden from you - yes, all of you, numbering four, who subscribe this silent simulacrum of a blog...

But I think I'd better share. (And, in fact, I have emailed posts to one of you already.)

My friend Arthur linked me to an article from this blog http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/and I've been hooked since. It's a veritable treasure-trove of all my favourite things: theology, German writers, fiction, writing, philosophy, literature ...

I don't agree with everything, but the writing is so seductive and pungent that I am often tempted to agree with it, just to have the joy of form and content cohering into one perfect happiness.

But disagreements make one think harder, and it's a pleasant business.

Check out the series of 3 gelato stories, and generally the entries in "August 2010", which includes some poignant reflections on writing from Flannery O'Connor, Rowan Williams, and my favourite, the moving entry "On Theology and Friendship."

The Visual Mixtape on the Behance Network

These be rather cool posters.

The Visual Mixtape on the Behance Network

Musing

This shall be my shortest post ever. Here's a question:

I wonder if reading the Narnia series' particular brand of mythopoeia as allegory is reductionistic and ultimately stagnating. What do you think?

Three-Dimensional Human Beings

Well, the posts here have been few and far in between. There's a lot of reasons for this, I suppose, when one sits down to think about it. I'm often very tired and my brain is mush; I haven't much time for reading and reflecting, and, in generally, don't have much time which isn't taken up with work, or friends/family, or just sleeping.

Perhaps it's a sign of intellectual rigour (what little muscle I had!) gone to flab. More positively, perhaps I am spending more time "out there" in the real world, with people, than sitting at home in front of the computer by myself.

In the final analysis, however, it boils down to "I ain't got much to say."

I do seem, however to have ample time to check Facebook, post articles, and click through the various albums of "a friend's friend's cousin's little sister's photos of her trip to that hip bar in Boronia."

Hmmm!

The internet is taking over my life!

While there's merit in just taking time to unwind, and allowing your brain to rest by clicking through a collection of cool photos on the internet, there comes to a point where you're simply wasting time. (Sounds obvious, huh?)

I've been mulling on the words of writer and English professor Alan Jacobs. On the enormous amount of internet "sharing" (blogs, FB updates, Flickr &c.) and passive online consumption that goes on, he comments:

What is necessary, I think, is for all of us to be engaged in some activity that challenges us, that tests our intellectual limits. For some people that might be reading Tolstoy, while for others it might involve writing code or learning Klingon. But as Lanier says, “You have to be somebody before you can share yourself,” and being somebody is an achievement. It requires intentional labor, and a degree of personal ambition — and anyone can work and strive, though some have farther to go than others. But a lot of fooling around on the internet is just that, fooling around: it doesn't test our resources or stretch our capacities. In many cases that’s fine, because we shouldn't be working all the time: but even if fooling around on the internet really does somehow increase social creative capital — which I have no reason to believe — it doesn't achieve a damned thing for the person doing it.

I ain't got nothing to say, because there's not much of me that is solid, and substantial.

Jacobs is a Christian, and no doubt hidden behind this statement is also a theology of humanity, that sees the inherent richness in each person - beyond personality, beyond mere intellectualism - that comes when we lose ourselves in Christ. He who created us knows that we are beyond a body to be fed, a functioning participant of society. We are ourselves, fearfully and wonderfully made, and there is no-one like us. Only, paradoxically, one must give away blindly, throwing 'self' away, to receive the mind and likeness of Christ, and in him made fully ourselves. For who knows us better than God who made us, "intentioned" us in our mother's womb?

Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. - CS Lewis.

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. - Jesus.

On Revivals and History Lectures

Tonight I attended the annual Charles Perry lecture at Ridley College. Named for the 1st bishop of St. James' Old Cathedral, the lecture series began in the 1990s; was abandoned some time after; and was then resurrected last year, with its inaugural speaker being no less that the Scottish historian David Bebbington.

The purpose of the lectures is for evangelicals to reflect and learn from their past.

As we were celebrating the 100 birthday of Ridley College, the lecture this year was on the state of evangelicalism in Victoria in and around 1910, with a particular concentration of the revivals that were happening around this period.

There was a lot of stuff going on - dates; references back to revivals in Britain and the US in the 18th and 19th century; influential figures who travelled to Australia ...But what I got out of the lecture were 2 things:

- Revivals happen because of prayer. "Extra-ordinary Prayer Concerts" was the phrase often employed to describe committed groups of Christians, gathering together regularly to pray specifically for God to work. These prayer meetings often lasted for years, before seeing fruit in revivals. They were also serious commitments. The Moravians, for instance, took shifts in praying, so that they were literally "praying unceasingly" day in, and day out.

- With regards to theology, all the leaders of the great revivals (Wesley, Edwards, Whitfield et al), had a sense of following in the footsteps the theology of the Reformers of the 16th century, without emendation. There was, however, one additional point which proved crucial: they were all deeply convinced that what happened at Pentecost with the Apostles could, and indeed, should be replicated in their current situations, within their community of believers. Their understanding of the Holy Spirit and what he could do in the present day was therefore paramount to fueling their revivals.

I came away from the evening with a deep sense of the power and need for prayer, before we come up with any strategies for how we do mission, or evangelism, or attempt to "transform the world for God."

Of course, the lecture raised more questions than it could possibly answer. Being a total ignoramus when it came to revivals, I wanted to know what exactly constituted a revival? And how do we measure, historically, what was a period of revival or not?

What is our theology of the Holy Spirit? Should we plead for revival now? And why didn't the 16th Century Reformers go for revivals, Day of Pentecost style? (Actually they were probably preoccupied with clearing the air re: Salvation by Faith alone - which the 18th century benefitted from).

******************

For someone who was reading the lecture out word for word, the speaker was quite engaging and clear in his presentation. However, the lecture would have confirmed the general suspicion amongst the populus, that, while history is Very Important and We Need to Know about It, the past is entirely and utterly Dull.

I hasten to add, that I doubt I could have done better with the material - dense and statistical - but it did lead me to ponder what makes a good lecture, and, in particular, a good history lecture.

Here are some thoughts, in no particular order:

1. judicial use of visuals: Speaking about historical figures is always so much more interesting when you chuck up a portrait or two, and there are so many wonderful paintings if you're in the right period.

2. ditto audio material (I once attended a lecture on Elizabethan England at the beginning of which the lecturer gave us a fine baritone rendition of "Greensleeves". It was relevant too!)

3. beware of chronology, for it's likely to slip into "and this happened, and then this person did this, and then this happened."

4. include funny anecdotes and quotations to "colour" the past (and because the truth is always stranger than fiction).

5. indicate at the beginning of your lecture the lay of the land - what you're going to cover, splitting the history thematically, if possible.

6. explain why you're covering the ground you're covering, and wherever possible, help make analytical links for your audience.

7. be excited! History is a great and exciting story, about real people, real passions, and often situations that no fiction writer could dream up. Tell it therefore as the ripping yarn that it is.

Summer Solstice in Berlin

There's a time between dusk and dark, where the clouds over the city of Berlin gather like a pluckered garment, and the fading light dyes the entire city an eerie blue. This is the best time to travel across Berlin on a train - over the Spree River, catching glimpses of various catherdral tops, jutting out like sharpened pencils from out of the darkening depth beneath your carriage.

And I am struck once again by how wonderful this city is. It's not that Berlin is particularly beautiful - it isn't. There's no magic that hangs over it like it does over Paris: everything picturesque and infused with some marvellous bubbly stuff that makes one swing one's hair, and over-gesticulate (shrug, demonstrate insouciance by a mere flick of the hand, jut out your lower lip as you drawl out "Ben, [long pause, maybe time for another shrug] .... oui). Nor does it have the rugged and gothic grandeur of Edinburgh - the craggy hills always in the distance, even as you wind yourself down another wee cobbled close.

Berlin is flat, spread out. A vast cacaphony of Schinkel architecture, Corinthian towers and 18th century splendour. Bauhaus, communist high-rise flats, memorials and monuments to battles lost and won, bombed out shells of churches and monasteries, expensive shopping centres, all neighbourly with the latest and rebuilding, covering over scars left by the war.

Having just spent two days in the baroque harmony of Leipzig, with its churches that pay homage to Bach and Luther, I felt dizzy and irritated. Berlin is mad, messy, loud.

It's only when I stop trying for cohesion, that Berlin woos me, once more.

Berlin is not uniformly elegant, nor quaintly historical, though there is more history here than can be recounted. It is uncomfortable and confronting, and in its dissonance a strange beauty. It's the most alive city I've ever been to.

Everything here has a story. Most of it not pleasant, but all entirely human. Berlin is split into 12 Bezirke, or boroughs, and each has a distinct flavour of its own. Here's just a few, to taste. Tiergarten in the east is gentil, with wide, tree-lined streets. Kreuzberg is famous for its large Turkish population, and the best place for a 3 euro Doner Kebab. Mitte is the tourist centre, with checkpoint Charlie, the Holocaust monument, and three glorious museums on an island on the river ... the wide street that leads to Brandenburg gate is called - delicious evocation! - "under the Linden trees". My favourite quarter is Prenzlauer Berg, the rent being still cheap enough for artists and musicians to hang around.

Broken Bells

Divest of beauty
The day crawls

Night edges out boredom
And lethargy takes its place

The ship has sailed
The glory departed

What is left but burnt cinder
And a cold cup of tea
left unattended?

This leaden body
This lenten season

This self-conscious word
This selfish soul

Languishing disaster.

And yet ...
When we cry out:
O God save us!
From the horror
From the terror of the midday shadow
From ourselves

You came.

infinity and eternity
reduced into a child's body.

This flesh, this blood.
Eat, drink.

Obsessions

Tomorrow I have to do a devotion in staff meeting with my colleagues. This involves selecting a passage from the bible, and reflecting on it for the benefit of the rest of staff. Sort of like a biblestudy, but much briefer, and more personal in content.

We've been studying the book of Luke in some of the students' bible study groups, so it's a case of 2 birds and 1 stone that we've also been using it as the scripture text for devos. I've been encouraged enormously by the ones that the other staff have done. They've taken the parables of Jesus, and challenged me enormously on my use of money, my trust in God's mercy for the day's bread and work, my passion for the spread of the gospel, in light of the reality of judgment.

So what am I going to talk about? I have no idea. I'm reading through Luke now, trying to gain a whole picture of the text. Partly this sense of empty-headedness comes from not knowing my scripture well enough, nor applying it hard enough in my life. One lesson I've learnt from one of my colleagues is the practice of looking at my life - examining the minutae, for it isn't mundane to God. She is adept on reflecting, as the Psalmists do, on the past mercies of God in her life, and drawing upon them, as from a well-spring, when she's dry.

But thinking about Luke, and the Gospels in general, the story that immediately comes to mind is the Transfiguration. I realised that I am a bit obsessed with the Transfiguration story. It is such a strange story. In a book that feels functional - full of parables that need to be worked out, like puzzles, it's a conudrum of a different kind. Why is it there? Why does the disciples witness it? Are not the miracles of Christ enough? Why the blinding light? The glory?

Perhaps it's there to remind the disciples that Christ is beautiful. That the future is bright. That eternity is beckoning. It's to pull the curtain aside for one moment, and see who Christ is.

That glory is not just revealed in deed, but on the imagination.

A Farewell to Arms

"Patience," said my friend, "is a virtue. And everything depends on right timing."

"That's real deep." I exclaimed, laughing. "And applicable to so many situations."

"I know." She smirked.


**********

Right timing is very important when it comes to our hot water system. A delicate work of surgery precision, every movement is registered, and has a resultant effect. Taking a shower has become a matter of strategic planning, as my housemates and I swap our various tactics against either an early death from pneumonia, or a hospital stay due to third degree burns.

My housemates all have different systems in place to combat this. Between munches of toast I discover that one housemate opts for the simple water-saving option. Just have quick showers, he says. In and out. Another relies on the precision of geometry: one twist of the hot tap anti-clockwise, and then 3 rapid turns of the cold. I measure heat by the number of body limbs washed. One clean arm and two legs under the lukewarm hot tap, and then it's time to turn on the cold water tap before I burn to death.

We are military strategists, the four of us. We plan our lines of attack, and, armed with towel, sponge and rubber ducky, plunge into the deluge. Mostly we emerge clean, pink and steamily triumphant. A few times, with a roar of pain or a shriek of shock, we stumble out, admitting defeat by the flaying of arms to keep the circulation going. Sometimes the white towel is hoised, and a truce is called. No time for conditioner, but at least the soap's been washed off.

My fourth housemate won't put up with it though. My morning shower, he explains, is like other people's morning coffee. Necessary. Like a good diplomat, he has surveyed the scene, observed the carnage, and decided its time we put down our arms and appeal to a higher authority.

He is right in his wisdom. We'll be ringing the landlord tomorrow.

Piano Lessons

Once, in an expansive mood of vaulting arrogance, I remarked during a dinner party that I don't bother reading books written after 1970. They're all crap, I said dismissively, and there are already enough disappointments in life. Besides, I was a pedant, and once begun a book, needed to read through to the end. No matter how bad. Only, with rubbish books, I'd skim, impatiently turning the pages, picking up a stray sentence here and there with my eyes, stringing together the plot in my head, keeping a finger tabbed on the last page and feeling with my hand the volume of words I had to go before I could put the book down, onto my Finished Pile.

Reading as I would eat a rushed meal. Gobbling, barely digesting. Not for taste, but for the sake of accomplishing the task.

Recently however, I've been influenced by friends who do venture into the 20th Century and beyond, to read into the present. Mostly, I've forgotten what I've read, but a few books have been gems.

Yesterday I used up my Borders voucher to buy Anna Goldsworthy's memoir, "Piano Lessons". I began reading in the bookshop, and my eyes barely left the page as I clambered on a tram home. I stayed up until 2am, when finally the book slipped out of my fingers as my head lurched forward in fatigue. This afternoon, in between coffee and conversations with my housemates, I finished it.

There are two photos of Anna Goldsworthy in the book. The first is on the front cover - a faded image in 70s russets of a small, chubby child in a hand-knitted jumper, smiling into the camera. Chin upturned, mousy brown hair dumped like a bowl on a moon face, hand awkwardly holding on a large, rectangular suitcase, body leading slighly off balance on the stoep of a suburban house. The smile takes you by surprise - no teeth, but how a closed, upturned mouth could exude such cheeky exuberance, such expression that draws you into a great cosmic joke.

I turn to the back cover for the other picture. A more recent and familiar image of Anna Goldsworthy - the dark curtain of hair, the palest of porcelain skin, a long white neck, deep blue eyes, a small and perfect red-ribbon smile. I'd seen this tall elegant woman on advertisement broschures for the Seraphim Trio, a statuesque presence at the piano. Later I glimpsed the same calm, reserved woman in the Ormond College SCR. A more human presence then, flanked by her Italian husband. Her children clambered onto the worn leather couches, and played havoc with the cushions. Her husband pulled one boy towards him, and quietly told the other to behave. The children switched effortlessly between English and Italian, while speaking to the parents.

Anna Goldsworthy's memoir spans the period between these two photos, recounting the path to becoming a concert pianist. The continuous thread is found in piano lessons, and indeed lessons in music and life, from her Russian piano teacher, Mrs Sivan. In between are conversations with an incredibly supportive family, a swathe of academic and musical awards, the awkwardness of growing up and entering high school. Mostly tho', there are the lessons learnt at the piano - phrases of illumination and wisdom that translates just as well into life as onto the musical stage. Lessons in how to live for a passion, to carry a legacy, to know that one belongs in a long line of musicians, men and women who grappled with beauty, with being human, with expression, and communication and oppression. With wanting to touch the face of God. We get to know the composers through their music.

Above all is the relationship between teacher and student. Mrs Sivan's extraordinary pedagogy - a genius teacher - conveyed to the reader through meticulously remembered phrases. The broken English only enhancing the richness of her emotional range, her joy in music, her drive in carrying that, instilling that into her young charge. What is intuition, she'd say, it's tuition, that is IN the student.

The writing is elegant and lyrical. Anna is after all, the daughter of Peter Goldsworthy, whose novel "Maestro" upturned my life one summer in my final year of High School. Cool heart, warm brain, Mrs Sivan had taught Anna about the art of pianistic interpretation, and it seemed to have carried over into her writing, which is clear without being mechanical, compact and economical, but rich in poetry, intense but not bleeding with passion.

A wonderful, self-deprecating, enlivening read, whether fans of memoirs, music or pedagogy.

Half a Review

Last night Flick and I took advantage of cheap Monday tix at the Nova to watch "In Search of Beethoven". Two and a half hours of sublime music and an epic saga of an extraordinary talent, a supreme confidence, and suffering ameliorated by a terse, agonising hope. The hope of happiness.

One of the loveliest things was the way Garbralsky weaved interviews from pianists, composers, historians, conductors. With an handheld camera mostly. There is the Beethoven worshipper, a owlish man who bounces on his feet in enthusiasm and affection. There is the respectful historian, who circulates around to the truth, to talk about Beethoven with diplomacy, forgiving his temper tantrums, his neurosis, his recusiveness. There are the pianists, who talk of Beethoven with a honest affection, as of an intimate friend. Commenting on his freakish fingering; the impossibility of his piano sonatas. The conductors, who speak with a mixture of jocularity and admiration for the genius that is Beethoven. The radical nature of his compositions, breaking all convention. The sheer arrogance of the 26 year old to write such music, to be so confident of his talent.

And the self-consciousness of Beethoven. His frequent desires to suicide, his ability to hold onto life, to keep writing, all the music in his head. His disorganisation, his lack of hygiene in the latter years, and yet, despite appearances, the very orderliness and control in his music. It's a common misapprehension that Beethoven's passion was barely contained, his intensity and temper wild and unpredicable. Perhaps it was so with his social life, and yet his music was deeply controlled, organised, intelligently wrought.