The Spoken Project

My super talented friend and neighbour, Sophie, has started a bold and brilliantly creative venture, called The Spoken Project.

Sophie was formerly a journalist/news reporter in Sydney, before moving down to Melbourne.

Here's what Sophie writes about the aim of her podcasts:

The Spoken Project is about learning through living. It’s about being human. It’s stories that will move your heart, and strengthen your faith.

The first podcast is about Kate, her housemate, who speaks about having an eating disorder.

I listened to it today, while preparing to go out (it's a little over 15 minutes long, so a perfect length!) I loved its honesty, its unpretentiousness, its backing soundtrack - another friend of mine, Sarah, composed the music.

I was humbled by the power of the Story, and warmth of the spoken voice. I was reminded, once again, of the deep, hidden things in each of our lives.

I am in awe of Kate's courage, and yet realise that she's the girl with the wind-blown hair, who I see walking along Brunswick Road, carrying a green Safeway shopping bag.

Kate's story is unique, but she's also someone just like me. And the powerful, redeeming God who has gathered her to him, and whom she loves, is the same one whom I love, and who makes everything new in my life.

Gaude! Gaude!

I fell in love with Latin as a teenager, because of sounds such as these. In the intervening time, the genitive absolute, Cicero, and cramming for Latin exams have made me forget.

It is, oh! so wonderful, to be reminded of an old, lost love.

A near perfect thing

Tis a rare thing to discover a Christmas Carol that I didn't know before, and in a beautiful arrangement.

This one is thanks to Something this Foggy Day.

Now we must praise

Edward Hirsch declared that English poetry began with vision:

" ... the holy trance of a seventh-century figure called Caedmon, an illiterate herdsman, who now stands at the top of the English literary tradition as the initial Anglo-Saxon or Old English poet of record, the first to compose Christian poetry in his own language."

According to Bede, the story goes that Caedmon, an old herdsman, would always flee when it came to his turn to sing during feasts. Being illiterate and unlearned, he was ashamed that he never had any songs to contribute. But one night, after he had once again left the banquet hall for the stables, a man appeared to him in a dream, and Caedmon was commanded to sing:

"Then [Caedmon] said: 'What must I sing?' Said he: 'Sing to me of the first Creation.' When [Caedmon] received this answer, then he began immediately to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard."

English poetry also began with an imperative. A necessary urgency to praise. In this season of waiting, it seems good to be me to stave off the impatience with praise of God.

Here's someone reading Caedmon's Hymn. The Anglo-Saxon sounds are at once familiar and foreign.

Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc,
uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuaes,
eci dryctin, or astelidæ.

He aerist scop aelda barnum
heben til hrofe, haleg scepen;
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard,
eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ
firum foldu, frea allmectig.

Now we must praise The Protector of the heavenly kingdom
The might of the Measurer and His mind's purpose
The work of the Father of Glory as He for each of the wonders
the eternal Lord established a beginning.
He shaped first for the sons of the Earth
heaven as a roof the Holy Maker
then the Middle-earth mankind's Guardian
the eternal Lord made afterwards
solid ground for men the almighty Lord.


One of my favorite modern poets, Denise Levertov, tells the story from Caedmon's perspective:

All others talked as if
talk were a dance.
Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet
would break the gliding ring.
Early I learned to
hunch myself
close by the door:
then when the talk began
I’d wipe my
mouth and wend
unnoticed back to the barn
to be with the warm beasts,
dumb among body sounds
of the simple ones.
I’d see by a twist
of lit rush the motes
of gold moving
from shadow to shadow
slow in the wake
of deep untroubled sighs.
The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing
my feeble beam,
a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:
but the cows as before
were calm, and nothing was burning,
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched my tongue
and pulled my voice
into the ring of the dance.


A burning circle of joy and blaze. Be drawn in.

Study Notes

In a little while I'll probably scribble out some thoughts on my first year at Theological College. But in the meantime, I found this, in my list of unpublished posts. It must've been written at the end of my first semester, about six months ago. Should be interesting to see if my reflections have changed, half a year on ...

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

The last month or two has felt like a long, mad run as I plowed through essays, presentations, stacks of chocolate and Greek flash cards. I've been juggling my own study with work commitments: some casual tutoring work - giving feedback on students' research essays. I finally finished up first semester last Tuesday, but it's only been now that I feel relaxed and can say - let the holidays begin.

I've been surprised at how difficult it has been, getting back to the study. I'm much more disciplined that I used to be, and there's far less self-pressure/fear: I don't worry about what mark I will get at the end of the semester (though of course I want to do well). But theological study is for knowing God better, and loving him more.

So my conclusion is that theological study is difficult. Its difficulty is two-fold: not only is the content difficult, but the methodology - how to do it well, reveals much about the student. What theology requires of you, as a human being, is difficult.

Theology requires you to be:

- kind (to others, to the lecturer, to oneself)
- humble (Dealing with frustration, anger, grief, dissatisfaction, impatience)
- to pay attention (to the details of God's word, to the details of each others' lives)
- to look failure in the face (The Greek exam)
- to be honest (with yourself, and with others)
- to integrate theology with life, practice with preaching
- to be patient with God, with yourself
- to trust God - to throw oneself into his bosom, and trust that he'll take care of it

Prayer after a picnic breakfast with my children

The writing is paltry and dry here, so I'm going to borrow a lyrical post from Ben Myers, to give you joy. The material world, in its innocence, its tangibility, is illuminated by our knowledge of God, and our love for him. Or, more correctly, our awareness of his love for us. Surely this is theology at its best! Theology gladdens our hearts, expands our souls, and anchors our daily pleasures in deeper Joy.

Theology that leads us into doxology.

Prayer after a picnic breakfast with my children

As a Theologian One Can Never Be Great

“With horror I read [a] statement that I was the greatest theologian of the century. That really terrified me…. What does the term ‘greatest theologian’ actually mean? … As a theologian one can never be great, but at best one remains small in one’s own way…. Let me again remind you of the donkey I referred to [earlier]. A real donkey is mentioned in the Bible, or more specifically an ass…. It was permitted to carry Jesus to Jerusalem. If I have done anything in this life of mine, I have done it as a relative of the donkey that went its way carrying an important burden. The disciples had said to its owner: ‘The Lord has need of it.’ And so it seems to have pleased God to have used me at this time, just as I was, in spite of all the things, the disagreeable things, that quite rightly are and will be said about me. Thus I was used…. I just happened to be on the spot. A theology somewhat different from the current theology was apparently needed in our time, and I was permitted to be the donkey that carried this better theology for part of the way, or tried to carry it as best I could.”

[Karl Barth, “Speech on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday Celebrations,” in Fragments Grave and Gay, 112]

Whoa, nelly!

This is - inspiring, much. Demanding, much. Beautiful, entire:

...theology requires a far great scholarly range than does any other humane science. The properly trained Christian theologian, perfectly in command of his materials, should be a proficient linguist, with a mastery of several ancient and modern tongues, should have a complete formation in the subtleties of the whole Christian dogmatic tradition, should possess a considerable knowledge of the texts and arguments produced in every period of the Church, should be a good historian, should be thoroughly trained in philosophy, ancient, medieval and modern, should have a fairly broad grasp of liturgical practice in every culture and age of the Christian world, should (ideally) possess considerable knowedge of literature, music and the plastic arts, should have an intelligent interest in the effects of theological discourse in areas such as law or economics, and so on and so forth. This is not to say that one cannot practice theology without these attainments; but such an education remains the scholarly ideal of the guild...

- David Bentley Hart.

Found here, with thanks.

Daily Rituals

You offer two corners of the sheet
we fold over and over and over again
and then in the middle we meet.
-Darren Hanlon.


Surely Odysseus could not have had a better ship
A grander sending off than this?
The sail unfurls

Transparent cotton
throws and scatters
chips of sun
on our bare feet.

We shall sail out into the day
each to work assigned
journeying through seas

Delighting in the waves
Chasing horizons and
Meeting our storms.

But in this moment we moor
set anchor

stay afloat
on shore.

You take two corners
And I the others.

The air whistles softly
Over our eiderdown harbour.

More than Me and Ted

Of all the various components that might make up a prayer (adoration, praise, thanksgiving, confession etc.), I think I find the element of intercession most difficult.

I find it difficult because it's the most easy to forget. Intercessory prayer shows me my self-centredness. It's a time when I realise that my worldview is so narrow, air-less and cramped. My attention, for the most part, is directed inwards, at my thoughts, my preoccupations, my concerns. I bring myself before God, and fill his vision with all my anxieties, my wants, my feelings.

In one sense I think this is right. I am the child, who artlessly comes before my papa, clutching my worn-out and dirty, but well-loved teddy. I sit upon my father's knee and tell him about the day I've had with my bear - our adventures, our joys, our hurts and scrapes. Never mind the greater world out there, with its larger doings and going-ons. My pervue is only for me and my bear.

Intercessory prayer takes me out of my myopic vision, to ask: what are the needs of those around me. It require me first to know the needs of those around me - and therefore to climb out of my own head and preoccupations. It then requires energetic partnership with God: How can I work, through prayer, for them? For, despite it feeling like mere thinking, or words into air, prayer is labour, and as Christians, we know it works. As one friend once wisely said: "If people are thinking, then they might be acting. But thoughts alone won't help anyone. Whereas prayers are actions in themselves."

Here's Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the transformative nature of intercessory prayers:

All Christians have their own circle of those who have requested them to intercede on their behalf, or people for whom for various reasons they know they have been called upon to pray. First of all, the circle will include those with whom they must live every day. With this we have advanced to the point at which we hear the heartbeat of all Christian life together. A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is the blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife, that cannot be overcome by intecessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purified bath into which the individual and the community must enter each day.

Life Together, page 89.

Of Cabbages and Kings

While most in Britain are gripped with Royal Wedding Fever, Australians are not impressed. A quick glance through my friends' facebook statuses (stati?) reveals that most will not have the TV switched on tonight, with one friend commenting: "I could watch the royal wedding, but I think there's a real possibility that the paint on my walls might dry out a little more tonight, and I think I'd better keep my eyes on them just in case."

A couple of good friends are so unimpressed as to rant about the hullaboo on their blog, making some good points about the unique way that Australians show affection.

I confess I'm not too excited about the whole thing either, and was tempted to boycott watching the ceremony on principle, because, well, people get married all the time, and no other couples get their faces plastered on tea-towels, mugs, ashtrays and notepads (although I guess that's not really Will and Kate's doing). Speaking of paraphenalia, you should really check out these knitted dolls! Why wed if you can't enshrine yourselves in finger puppets for your grandchildren?

However, I am going to watch the wedding, largely because I want to see what they'll do to the ceremonial side of things, and because I want to hear what Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury will preach ....

Here's a couple of thoughts on the Royal Family, however.

Most Australians, I would hazard, dislike the idea of a monarchy, because we believe in equality, and in the benefits of a meritocracy. It's foreign, that a particularly family should be exalted, simply based on pedigree. I think I am like that too: I believe in total egalitarianism (how else can a poor, immigrant child gain an education and earn a living?) And yet, watching the wedding and thinking about Royalty has made me question, whether hierarchy holds a deep truth for us.

As a child I loved the Medieval period best, because of the kings and queens; the pomp and circumstance; the pagentry and chivalry of knights and battles.

And then I grew up. I learnt about the market economy, the class argument, and the horrendous plight of the peasantry - all of which is summed up hilariously in this Monty Python sketch.

Yet the idea of Kingship, and the ideal Rule of Christ Jesus, figures hugely in the theological imagination, and thus ought to dictate our understanding of the world from a Christian perspective. It's something I find at once moving, and yet supremely difficult to reconcile.

So here are my scattered thoughts:

As I say, something about the idea of Kingship needs to be felt with the imagination. You have to 'taste' the word King - which its attendant associations of battle, splendor, power and mercy. (Think of what you felt in the more moving parts of 'Braveheart' or reading about Aslan when you were a child).

Yet kingship in our modern day and age is paltry, trite and often embarrassing. The people who we call 'royal' fail our imaginations - they are hardly heroic, glorious figures. They do not inspire confidence, let alone fealty. We speculate that Will and Kate's marriage won't last the onslaught of the years; we laugh at Eugenie and Beatrice's fashion faux pas; and even the Queen, who's my favourite of the lot, is often represented as a stodgy, stoic figure, trying to do her diplomatic best with some idiotic family members.

So we abandon kingship and hierarchy, and hold onto democracy and equality. It's the 'least worst' option, and a way of protecting human beings, from Lord Acton's dictum, that absolute power will corrupt, absolutely. Of course, it would be most sensible and practical, to abolish the English Monarchy entirely, and for Australia to become a Republic. But what if, in acquiescing to political pragmatism and modern statecraft, we cut the one remaining, tangible thread to a larger reality about what it means to be human? What if the monarchy is the one remaining conduit, through which to channel the best and noblest sentiments and ideals of citizenship - "loyalty, the concecration of secular life, and hierarchical principle, splendor, ceremony and continuity"?

For, whatever idiotic persons within the royal family itself, and whatever kind of lunacy exists in Royalty Fever, the British Monarchy reminds us of that tingly feeling we had, when we once loved kings and queens. Something of the magic of hierarchical representation and the noble idea of giving one's unreservered allegiance to one entirely beautiful and deserving, lingers on. (And a ceremonial monarchy, together with a legal democracy like what Britain has, is, I think, the best way to hold onto both.)

CS Lewis writes, upon viewing Queen Elizabeth II's coronation ceremony on television, that the ceremony wasn't conducted with a sense of triumphalism, but an overwhelming sense of pathos. The young queen herself, then only 20 or so, seemed to be visibly moved by the sacramental side of things. Those watching, felt a sense of

awe - pity - pathos - mystery. The pressing of that huge, heavy crown on that small, young head becomes a symbol of the situation of humanity itself: humanity called by God to be His vice-regent and high priest on earth, and yet feeling so inadequate.

He goes on to observe that it is as if God says, in my inexorable love for you, I raise you from dust, from mere animal creatures, to a level of reason, of apprehension, in order that you might have a relationship with me. You are crowned a little lower than angels, and upon your head I lay responsibilities, splendors, glories and dangers that are beyond your understanding.

One misses the whole point of a coronation, a royal wedding, the existence of the royal family, if we do not feel, that in some way, we have all been crowned, we have all been married, we are all princes and princesses, though in a way that is deeply tragic as well as splendid.

One misses the whole point of human royalty as well, if we cannot see that all human kings fail, and cannot exist but as a pointer to the Real King Jesus, and the real rule of a perfect human being - righteous, and full of self-giving grace.

Well, carry on, carry on.

Locust Years

Today I discovered the poet Billy Collins, who's written a couple of simple but poignant poems on forgetfulness and memorisation. I have a horrible memory, and gathering the past always feel like following a trail of bread crumbs - some have disappeared, some are lodged amongst bramble, very few are whole and worth the keeping. A slow and futile scramble.

I wondered if, in the new heavens and new earth that I look forward to, that my memory will be restored to me: all the jokes that were so good and that I swore to remember, the unforgettable quotes, consigned to notebooks but irretrievable to memory, the smell of a new city overseas, the indescribable look on a half-obscured face, countless sermons heard and gone the following week, lines of music, the lost optative verb forms, books, poems, dates, numbers, faces, places. Even the piercing moments of pain or shame, might they be given back to me, and take on a different shade of feeling?

I love that verse in Joel, when God promises, after a severe famine in the land of Israel, to "restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten." I hope those words apply metaphysically too.

*******

FORGETFULNESS

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

- Billy Collins

Rodrigo y Gabriela

This makes me want to get up and stomp my feet. Brilliant.

Unintended audiences

I've been intrigued to read the following article from Christianity Today.

While I might take issue with the writer's assumptions and approach, it did make me think quite a bit about what happens with blogging, and what sort unintended consequences it produces, once an idea has been unleashed into the blogosphere.

In his latest post, Alan Jacobs records a conversation with the excellent Miroslav Volf. It highlights, in passing, something about the nature of 'conversations' on the internet. He notes our inability to change and adapt our language rhetorically, as according to our audience (something we do naturally in conversations and in other written media - cf. persuasive essay, thesis, polemic letter to the editor.) This is because our intended audience, that is, the audience we're writing for, is too big, and too unpredictable. For good or ill, we don't know who's eavesdropping on our conversation. And that ought to have implications, not only for what we say, but how we say it, in our blogs. Here's Alan Jacobs, putting it more eloquently:


... while one might want to speak differently in different rhetorical situations, might strive to adjust one's language to suit different audiences that have different needs, in practice we do not live in a world with "bounded" rhetorical situations. "Everyone is listening," he said, thanks to the World Wide Web, as it is accurately called, which takes what you say to one audience and broadcasts it — as text, audio, video, or all of the above — to pretty much anyone who's interested in finding it.

One of the most fundamental principles of rhetoric has always been decorum, that is, suiting one's language to occasion and audience. Those of us who teach writing typically think it vital to get our students to think in these terms — to see that they must adjust style and diction, evidence and argument, to reach the readers they most want to reach.

Such imperatives will never cease to be important. But it also seems likely that we will have to train students to be aware — and will have to train ourselves to be aware — that much of what we say and write can find audiences we never intended. And the consequences of our words' extended reach will not always be positive ones.

Imitatio/Ersatz

I've been enjoying a show on ABC TV called Forger's Masterclass. The premise: John Myatt, a British art forger, evidentedly rehabilitated, hosts a show during which he shows three fine art students how to paint in the style of one of the great masters - Monet, Hockney, Braque, Van Gogh etc. It's brilliant viewing. Apart from the kooky art students, you realise just how difficult, technically, some of the deceptively simple works of modern art are. And, of course, in the imitation of others, one discovers something of one's own style.

So I'd been thinking about the art of imitation, when I got my first piece of German homework last week. We were given a painting (see below), and asked to write a 200-word story, about the three people in it. I was sceptical, at first (what were we, in High School again?), but soon fell into the project. It's a challenge, to construct something interesting within narrow confines.

I thought about Vermeer - how his pictures capture a moment in time in lives of his figures; a sharp juncture in the storyline. Amongst short story writers, the American Lydia Davis is well-known for her elliptical single paragraph or one page-long stories. And I've always wanted to try a story à la Peter Bichsel, my favourite Swiss writer. His whimsical, deceptively simple short stories often focus on the mundane - small incidents of everyday life - which, when at the centre of a short piece of writing, come into sharp focus, and reveal something deeply moving about human existence.

So here's my attempt at a Bichsel-Davis-esque piece. (I know it's pretentious, but I've included the German, 'cos it looks good. :P FYI: The German exercise was to test our knowledge of adjectival and article agreements - hence the plethora of them!)

Oh, by the way: While I was writing, I asked one of my housemate what the story of the picture was about. He came over to where I was sitting, and peering over my shoulder at the laptop, said: "Oh, that guy's lost his car keys over the cliff. She's pointing them out to him, while he's trying to get them without going over the edge. The other guy's just standing apart, laughing."

Wish I'd written that story! Hey, why don't you have a go at your own? Might be fun.

Kreidefelsen auf Rügen

Ihre Kutsche war zu schnell über den steinigen Weg gefahren, und armer Caspar hatte immer einen empfindlichen Magen.Hier lag er, wie eine große, schwartzbraune Motte, flatternd, auf dem grünen Gras. Sein Gesicht, blaß und schweißig, war genauso wie die weiße Farbe der Kreidefelsen vor ihnen. Er starrte ungläubig auf die kleinen Boote am Meer. In der Form ihres dreieckigen Hutes, schaulkelten sie auf dem Wasser. Ihre Bewegung ließ ihm wieder erbrechen. Diese Seeleute! Das war nichts für ihn. Er hasste Boote.

Their carriage was too fast over the stony path, and poor Caspar had always had a weak stomach. He laid there, like a large, black-and-brown moth, fluttering on the green grass. His face, pale and sweaty, was exactly the colour of the white chalk cliffs before them. He stared out, unbelievingly, at the small boats on the sea. The form of his three-cornered hat, they bobbed on the water. Their movement made him sick again. These sailors! That was not for him. He hated boats.

Christiane war auch dankbar für die frische Luft. Für sie hatte der Tag früh angefangen. Sie hatte nichts gegessen; hatte mit jedem gesprächigen Gast geredet; und jemand hatte auf ihrem Brautschleier getreten. Jetzt war es schön, einfach in dem hellen, winterlichen Licht zu sitzen. Sie beobachtete die Boote. Sie mochte ihr großes blaßes Segelwerk, so zart dennoch groß, das es einen Windstoß enthalten konnte. Sie hoffte, dass Caspar und sie segeln würden. Sie hatte nie gesegelt.

Christiane was also thankful for the fresh air. For her, the day had started early. She had not eaten anything; had spoken with every chatty guest, and someone had trodden on her wedding veil. It's lovely, now, simply to sit in the bright, winter light. She watched the boats. She liked their large, pale sails, so fragile yet capable of holding a great gale. She hoped, that she and Caspar will go sailing. She had never sailed.

Der Kutscher dachte, Es ist spät, wir müssen schon wegfahren. Er wollte nach Hause gehen. Er wollte seine Frau küssen. Er wollte sich zu Tische setzen und ein warmes Abendessen essen. Später, brächte er die Kleineren ins Bett. Dann säße er sich am Kamin, und mache ein kleines Segelboot. Das Segelboot wäre aus Holz, und war für seinen zweitjüngsten Sohn. Er pfiff lautlos, durch die Lücken zwischen seinen ungleichen Zähnen.

The driver thought: It is late, we must go soon. He wanted to go home. He wanted to kiss his wife. He wanted to sit at the table and eat a warm dinner. Later, he will put the little ones to bed. Then he will sit before the fire, and work on a small sailing boat. The boat was made of wood, and was for his second youngest son. He whistled soundless, through the gaps between his uneven teeth.

Poetry and Theology

Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture

into the only whole thinking: poetry.
Nothing's said till it's dreamed out in words
and nothing's true that figures in words only.

A poem, compared with an arrayed religion,
may be like a soldier's one short marriage night
to die and live by. But that is a small religion.

Full religion is the large poem in loving repetition;
like any poem, it must be inexhaustible and complete
with turns where we ask Now why did the poet do that?

You can't pray a lie, said Huckleberry Finn;
you can't poe one either. It is the same mirror:
mobile, glancing, we call it poetry,

fixed centrally, we call it a religion,
and God is the poetry caught in any religion,
caught, not imprisoned. Caught as in a mirror

that he attracted, being in the world as poetry
is in the poem, a law against its closure.
There'll always be religion around while there is poetry

or a lack of it. Both are given, and intermittent,
as the action of those birds - crested pigeon, rosella parrot -
who fly with wings shut, then beating, and again shut.

- Les Murray.

If ever I could write the syllabus for a theological subject, I'd make sure that the students' reading list included some poetry or fiction, as well as usual books and articles ... The imagination should should illuminate before God, even as Reason strain after Him.

New Project

Well, a new year means a new venture.

Here's a project I've started with a friend. Inspired by Julia & Julie, we're going to try to read (and blog) our way through a wonderful list of 100 books.

http://www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca/

Unlike Julie's plan to cook her way through The Art of French Cooking in 365 days, I suspect we'll take longer to get through this list of books. In fact, we've joked about passing it on to our various imaginary and beleaguered children, and their children's children ... Or, more likely (and worse!), of passing the readership from our subscribers to their progeny.

Nevertheless, methinks an ambitious and perhaps noble venture. A bit of fun, at the very least.

Hope you can join us, some time.

A Girl who Reads

Thanks to my friend Kate, I discovered this lyrical and joyful post: http://themonicabird.com/post/3273155431/date-a-girl-who-reads-date-a-girl-who-spends-her.

Hope you enjoy it too!

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

- William Stafford.

Working towards God

After a long and dreary day of work, and really, a long and arduous week of Arbeit, I read this, and it was good.

"Work puts human beings in the world of things. It requires achievement from them. Christians slep out of the world of personal encounter into the world of impersonal things. the It; and this new encounter frees them for objectivity, for the world of the It is only an instrument in the hands of God for the purification of Christian from all self-absorption and selfishness. The work of the world can only be accomplished where people forget themselves, where they lose themselves in a cause, reality, the task, the It. Christians learn at work to allow the task to set the bounds for them. Thus, for them, work becomes a remedy for the lethargy and laziness of the flesh. The demands of the flesh die in the world of things. But that can only happen where Christians break through the It to the You of God, who commands the work and the deed and makes them serve to liberate Christians from themselves."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p75.

Resolution

Today I read through and marked 10 uniformly uninspired and insipid essays. I then resolved to never write a boring essay, ever again. Even if it's just to give my marker half an hour of happiness. My essays, shall, henceforth, be either entertaining under-researched, or spectacularly inaccurate, or grammatically imaginative.

Just. Not. Boring!

The Humanities: A diatribe

A recent post by the admirable and eloquent Terry Eagleton:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/17/death-universities-malaise-tuition-fees?INTCMP=SRCH

has sparked some discussion amongst my facebook friends.

It sent me on a veritable verbal diatribe, some of which I'll replicate here, for your thoughts:

... Much as it pains me to admit it, the nature of the academy/public education, and how they handle the humanities degree (and especially the higher Masters & PhDs) need to change. The university was set up in a completely different culture and designed for a different age; with a different economic imperative, and a particular view of the mind.

Universities need to train "humanists" (for want of a better word. Is moral, critical, creative thinkers/actors a better description?) for the larger world - we want humanistic lawyers, engineers, doctors, street cleaners. We do this by connecting knowledge and skills for a continuously changing world. But currently, doing advanced training in a humanities Masters/PhD relegates the student to no other alternative except academic professorship (not that I have anything against that!). But there are no other jobs that respect someone with training in the humanities.

You can find a good article about this here: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/05/24/krebs

Ultimately, what bothers me, is the dastard vagueness and confusion that characterises most humanities centres/departments. No one is really sure what the POINT of the humanities actually is. Talk to a English professor, a historian, a sociologist, or a lecturer in philosophy, and they will all give you a different answer (or no answer at all!)

To borrow, nay, plagiarise from Alan Jacobs (who got it from someone else), here is the problem in a netshell:

1) The scholarly performance of academic humanists is evaluated — by colleagues, tenure committees, etc. — using criteria developed for evaluating scientists.

2) Those criteria are built around the idea of knowledge creation.

3) But many humanists aren't sure what counts as knowledge creation for them, since they are not able to follow any agreed-upon method for testing hypotheses.

4) This problem grows more pressing as expectations for publication rise: scholars are asked to create more and more knowledge without being sure what knowledge is.

without being sure what knowledge is. Here, is the crux of the problem. We have access to so much information; so much knowledge, so many points of contact, so many articles to read, RSS feeds to subscribe to, that I think we've lost all focus. There is, in addition, no yardstick, no set methodology. (Arguable, this could breed creativity as well as stagnation ...)

Additionally, this is a very knowledge/information-centric way of looking at the world. I wonder what happens when we look at it from the point of view of people - individuals, and communities. The humanistic Arts, in ways which cannot be fathomed nor replicated by the Sciences, shapes the heart, soul and character of a person/people. Incidentally, didn't the Greeks believe that the sole purpose of education was to teach virtues, and to create people who lived the Good Life? (Because virtues, according to the Greeks, led to happiness.)

Most importantly, how do we use, create, imbibe and revel in the knowledge that the humanities give us, in light of it being part of God's creation, and in light of our ultimate aim, to love and know God more?

(It's an exciting, if somewhat trying time, to be a Christian, and part of the humanities).

Promise Keeper

God does not give us everything we want, but God does fulfill all God's promises, i.e., God remains the Lord of the earth, God preserves the Church, constantly renewing our faith and not laying on us more than we can bear, gladdening us with Divine nearness and help, hearing our prayers, and leading us along the best and straightest paths to holiness. By God's faithfulness in doing this, God creates in us praise for God alone.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p206.