So, okay, we watched The Dark Knight last night. Wow. If you don't like it, you're undoubtedly some kind of commie-nazi and I will not brook your disparagements. It not only exceeded Batman Begins (which I also enjoyed after the previous 'films', much as I might enjoy breathing air after swimming in raw sewage), it exceeded my own expectations (which were high, considering its box office success and the hype surrounding Heath Ledger's performance) and is, at this point, probably my favorite film I have seen this year.
Ledger's performance isn't just 'Oscar-worthy' as people say. That, frankly, isn't too demanding considering they gave one to Jolie for that train-wreck of a film, Girl, Interrupted. Or considering that Titanice is still tied with Return of the King and Ben Hur for most Oscars won (ten each). Ludicrous. Appalling. The Oscars are bunk. We all know this but, since we don't usually check Critics' Circle awards or some other obscure colloquium of Roger Ebert look-alikes, we continue to use the Oscars as a standard of some sort, even if that standard is patently absurd and inconsistent.
...anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the Joker. Nicholson is still noted for his take in the 1989 Tim Burton flick. And it was good, and, overall, appropriately insane. One is hardly surprised considering this was, after all, Jack freaking Nicholson and not, for example, anyone else. When it came to this new iteration I was, at first, concerned. I mean, Heath Ledger is/was fun, but he is/was a punk-ish Aussie teenbeat kind of actor--in other words, a bad one. So when I heard that his performance was 'amazing' or 'Oscar-worthy', I figured this was the usual hyperbole that critics (especially the kind who get hired for morning network shows) spew whenever some gibbering idiot turns out to have enough talent to make a character at least palatable. Think, for example, of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show or Ben Affleck in...well, no, not Ben Affleck. I sort of assumed this was the same kind of thing: lousy actor does mediocre job and everyone loves him for it.
But no. Not by far. The subleties of his movement, the slight mannerisms which seemed almost truly unconscious, the complex layers of self-loathing and masochism projected onto the outside world without recourse to some simple or, as is usually the case, hackneyed, explanation. Heath Ledger gave what is, in my opinion, one of the best performances I have seen in years. I have rarely seen someone so naturally inhabit an identity. Marlon Brando always had that talent, but his self-absorption got in the way (think of his Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now). Ledger gave himself away entirely to the Joker and the force of his hatred, his anger, eclipsed everyone and everything in the film. There were no 'safe' moments, because this character was always there, lurking, unpredictable and yet utterly believable--high praise for a character who wears a freakin' purple suit and makeup. I'm actually struggling to recall the last time a single performance (in someone other than the main character) has so completely made a film not merely decent but great. I can't think of anything in recent memory.
I can, nay, I will sum up the film's intensity, its 'thrill-factor', if you will (and you must), thus: my wife experienced Braxton-Hicks Contractions throughout the last hour of the film.
That's right, it was so thrilling, so stupendous, that her body began demanding that our baby be born there and then. Bam. In the venerable presence of the late Heath Ledger and, to a lesser but certainly important extent, that of Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart.
So, yeah, I think it's safe to say that all three of us rather enjoyed the film. I think we also took it as a warning that perhaps we need to reconsider the sort of films we go see in theatres between now and October. Or, as is more likely, between now and sometime in 2009. But that's alright. This was a good note to end on, if indeed last night was to mark some ominous caesura in our cinematic adventures, since I haven't enjoyed a thriller this much since the first time I saw The Fugitive in theaters.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Monday, 28 July 2008
It's been months. I had almost given this up for dead, as I have with every previous attempt and consigned it to the rubbish-heap of history, along with my baseball mitt, my guitar, and my novel in five volumes entitled Gillian Thistlebutton's Big Day: Or, The Eclectic Affairs of a Country Village.
But no. I have chosen instead to resurrect it. Inspired, if that is the appropriate word, by the realization that the reason I stopped posting was, in fact, my own sense of guilt at not posting enough remarks of a serious nature. You know the kind--the kind no one in their right minds actually wants to read but which, out of a not-dissimilar sense of guilt (or, perhaps, shame), people keep writing. There are various practical reasons for writing that sort of blog, I suppose: networking, advertising and getting feedback on one's scholarly work, pretending for five minutes a day that a readership of one hundred people (and fifty thousand bots) constitutes fame.
I will probably start a blog of that sort in the near future for precisely those reasons, where I can post all kinds of pompous and asinine remarks about things of such parochial interest that Yeshiva students shy away. It will, therefore, be basically identical to this blog.
I will probably also have to start washing away my shame until I bleed.
By way of digression, I do want to say that this is not to denigrate all serious blogs. Some are quite interesting. In fact, many of my friends and colleages maintain very interesting ones. There are several, in fact, here at Durham and one at Cambridge (although he somehow maintains, like, seventeen and they are in Swedish, so I have to take his word on their interest). Granted, they tend to talk about things with vigor and wit and, of course, cuss a lot less. I just suspect that my blog will fall in a somewhat different category. One perhaps a bit lower down the hierarchy of blogs--as defined by the Supreme Potentate of Blogging and Generalissimo-for-Life, Al Gore.
Of course, my initial self-realization was, in itself, meaningless--nothing more than another in a long series of such reflections which invariably end up in the downstairs closet with Gillian Thistlebutton. And rightly so. They're unproductive. Post facto realizations do not solve anything. They simply explain why something went wrong long after the opportunity to repair or restart has passed. The fact that so many of my self-realizations are of this sort undoubtedly speaks volumes about me (5, to be precise) but I'll worry about that later.
But, in this case, the realization was not entirely post facto. For one thing, we don't have a downstairs closet, so there's no longer any place to hide. Also, it was, in fact, inter facta, which is Latin for 'between faxes.' (No, not really. Or is it? YOU be the judge!) Basically, thanks to the almost limitless redemptive and purificatory possibilities of the internet, I can always begin again or, as in this case, sort of pick up a sentence in mid-clause. I don't even need to apologize for being such a punk. Because I have total anonymity. (Can you hear the maniacal laughter? I can, like burbling mountain brooks, but, you know, in my head)
I can, rather than going silently back to my former ways, as a pig returns to her filth, instead return to my blog, as a pig returns to her...blog, I guess. Admittedly, the simile kind of breaks down but you assuredly get the idea. If not, just pretend. Please? Just nod your head. Like so.
Thank you. I appreciate your understanding.
So I'm back. With all the flav-o(u)r/-a that you have come to expect from a man whose posting topics revolve perennially around monkeys, kung fu, and motorcycle gangs composed entirely of whizened theologians. Or, at least, those are the topics he claims to post about. I don't think I've ever posted about monkeys or kung fu except in a hypothetical sense. Although, there is some comfort even in hypothetical monkeys, isn't there? They are much cleaner, for one thing, and their antics never result in sudden outbreaks of rare and uncurable diseases or vicious knife-fights.
Although hypothetical monkeys have been known to result in sudden outbreaks of rare and uncurable blog posts. Maybe I should rename this journal 'The Hot Zone.' You know, since my blog is viral, like ebola or some other hemorrhagic fever--because, in the immortal words of Vanilla Ice, 'my styles is like a chemical spill.'
Precisely why he thought that simile would sound complimentary continues to elude me.
Anyway, I'm back. That was, indeed, only the introduction.
Nah, just kidding. That was actually the whole thing.
N.B.: I have never started a novel. If I had, though, it would most definitely be about Gillian Thistlebutton and her country affairs. Or robot dogs in prehistoric New York. One of the two.
But no. I have chosen instead to resurrect it. Inspired, if that is the appropriate word, by the realization that the reason I stopped posting was, in fact, my own sense of guilt at not posting enough remarks of a serious nature. You know the kind--the kind no one in their right minds actually wants to read but which, out of a not-dissimilar sense of guilt (or, perhaps, shame), people keep writing. There are various practical reasons for writing that sort of blog, I suppose: networking, advertising and getting feedback on one's scholarly work, pretending for five minutes a day that a readership of one hundred people (and fifty thousand bots) constitutes fame.
I will probably start a blog of that sort in the near future for precisely those reasons, where I can post all kinds of pompous and asinine remarks about things of such parochial interest that Yeshiva students shy away. It will, therefore, be basically identical to this blog.
I will probably also have to start washing away my shame until I bleed.
By way of digression, I do want to say that this is not to denigrate all serious blogs. Some are quite interesting. In fact, many of my friends and colleages maintain very interesting ones. There are several, in fact, here at Durham and one at Cambridge (although he somehow maintains, like, seventeen and they are in Swedish, so I have to take his word on their interest). Granted, they tend to talk about things with vigor and wit and, of course, cuss a lot less. I just suspect that my blog will fall in a somewhat different category. One perhaps a bit lower down the hierarchy of blogs--as defined by the Supreme Potentate of Blogging and Generalissimo-for-Life, Al Gore.
Of course, my initial self-realization was, in itself, meaningless--nothing more than another in a long series of such reflections which invariably end up in the downstairs closet with Gillian Thistlebutton. And rightly so. They're unproductive. Post facto realizations do not solve anything. They simply explain why something went wrong long after the opportunity to repair or restart has passed. The fact that so many of my self-realizations are of this sort undoubtedly speaks volumes about me (5, to be precise) but I'll worry about that later.
But, in this case, the realization was not entirely post facto. For one thing, we don't have a downstairs closet, so there's no longer any place to hide. Also, it was, in fact, inter facta, which is Latin for 'between faxes.' (No, not really. Or is it? YOU be the judge!) Basically, thanks to the almost limitless redemptive and purificatory possibilities of the internet, I can always begin again or, as in this case, sort of pick up a sentence in mid-clause. I don't even need to apologize for being such a punk. Because I have total anonymity. (Can you hear the maniacal laughter? I can, like burbling mountain brooks, but, you know, in my head)
I can, rather than going silently back to my former ways, as a pig returns to her filth, instead return to my blog, as a pig returns to her...blog, I guess. Admittedly, the simile kind of breaks down but you assuredly get the idea. If not, just pretend. Please? Just nod your head. Like so.
Thank you. I appreciate your understanding.
So I'm back. With all the flav-o(u)r/-a that you have come to expect from a man whose posting topics revolve perennially around monkeys, kung fu, and motorcycle gangs composed entirely of whizened theologians. Or, at least, those are the topics he claims to post about. I don't think I've ever posted about monkeys or kung fu except in a hypothetical sense. Although, there is some comfort even in hypothetical monkeys, isn't there? They are much cleaner, for one thing, and their antics never result in sudden outbreaks of rare and uncurable diseases or vicious knife-fights.
Although hypothetical monkeys have been known to result in sudden outbreaks of rare and uncurable blog posts. Maybe I should rename this journal 'The Hot Zone.' You know, since my blog is viral, like ebola or some other hemorrhagic fever--because, in the immortal words of Vanilla Ice, 'my styles is like a chemical spill.'
Precisely why he thought that simile would sound complimentary continues to elude me.
Anyway, I'm back. That was, indeed, only the introduction.
Nah, just kidding. That was actually the whole thing.
N.B.: I have never started a novel. If I had, though, it would most definitely be about Gillian Thistlebutton and her country affairs. Or robot dogs in prehistoric New York. One of the two.
Friday, 11 April 2008
Welcome Back, Kotter
I was watching an episode of Scrubs last night (via totally legal means) and was intrigued by a main character's choice of title for his blog post: 'Why Being Totally Lonely Can Sometimes Be Super-Awesome.' First I laughed heartily at his pain. Then I realized that I haven't posted anything in well over a month and that the last post was, ahem, regrettable.
Not so regrettable that I am deleting it, but still...regrettable.
Particularly that part about 'Spring' being upon us. That was a lie. A filthy, cruel, self-destructive lie. It has since put me into a 'shame spiral' of weekend snow storms, hail, freezing rain and dipping temperatures.
Spring is not only not upon us, but Winter has, it would seem, pretty emphatically mounted and mastered us. The image is graphic and vile, but, I think, also just barely adequate to describe my feelings on the weather this year.
On the other hand, this has made some sense for me of just why the English constantly discuss the weather. It's because it is far more interesting here than in other places. Take Seattle--it rains until July, then is sunny until September, and then the rain returns. Yes, yes, I know, you say that this year has seen snow and other whatnot but, since I'm not there to witness this bizarre phenomenon, I don't believe a word of it until I can put my feet in the snowdrifts and touch the falling flakes with my hands. To put it more concisely: all Seattlites are liars and should be ashamed of themselves. Or again, take Santa Fe--it's sunny. In the summer we expect some thunder showers and in the winter some snow. But generally it's sunny. Boring. Where's the pizazz? Where's the gusto?
That's where England comes in. Last Saturday it varied between warm and sunny, cold and rainy, snowing without sticking, snowing and sticking, hail, ice shards (which are, I can now assure you with confidence far more painful than hail--especially when being driven into your face by fierce winds while you decide in which direction you should leave the exposed hill atop which you've been eating pears), and sun. Again. Flowers are blooming and they look just lovely under the snow/ice/hail/rain/sun. That was one day. I won't even get into Easter weekend, which was like an extended version of the same.
Tatiana says that's what happens when people celebrate Easter in the middle of Lent. And, dagnabit, she's right. You people have got to start reckoning Ortho style or you're just going to bring more of God's weather-wrath on all of us and, frankly, I'm not suffering for your miscalculations. I'm staying in by the fire and fasting--the way God intended it.
But, long story slightly shorter: the weather here is interesting. It's actually worth a brief conversation and is swiftly replacing baseball, politics, and television as my 'go to' awkward-conversation-starter-topic.
It is, of course, a fitting irony that England truly shines in making the weather of all things an interesting topic. Boring food, boring sports (cricket? give me a break), boring personality, but...exciting weather.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Not so regrettable that I am deleting it, but still...regrettable.
Particularly that part about 'Spring' being upon us. That was a lie. A filthy, cruel, self-destructive lie. It has since put me into a 'shame spiral' of weekend snow storms, hail, freezing rain and dipping temperatures.
Spring is not only not upon us, but Winter has, it would seem, pretty emphatically mounted and mastered us. The image is graphic and vile, but, I think, also just barely adequate to describe my feelings on the weather this year.
On the other hand, this has made some sense for me of just why the English constantly discuss the weather. It's because it is far more interesting here than in other places. Take Seattle--it rains until July, then is sunny until September, and then the rain returns. Yes, yes, I know, you say that this year has seen snow and other whatnot but, since I'm not there to witness this bizarre phenomenon, I don't believe a word of it until I can put my feet in the snowdrifts and touch the falling flakes with my hands. To put it more concisely: all Seattlites are liars and should be ashamed of themselves. Or again, take Santa Fe--it's sunny. In the summer we expect some thunder showers and in the winter some snow. But generally it's sunny. Boring. Where's the pizazz? Where's the gusto?
That's where England comes in. Last Saturday it varied between warm and sunny, cold and rainy, snowing without sticking, snowing and sticking, hail, ice shards (which are, I can now assure you with confidence far more painful than hail--especially when being driven into your face by fierce winds while you decide in which direction you should leave the exposed hill atop which you've been eating pears), and sun. Again. Flowers are blooming and they look just lovely under the snow/ice/hail/rain/sun. That was one day. I won't even get into Easter weekend, which was like an extended version of the same.
Tatiana says that's what happens when people celebrate Easter in the middle of Lent. And, dagnabit, she's right. You people have got to start reckoning Ortho style or you're just going to bring more of God's weather-wrath on all of us and, frankly, I'm not suffering for your miscalculations. I'm staying in by the fire and fasting--the way God intended it.
But, long story slightly shorter: the weather here is interesting. It's actually worth a brief conversation and is swiftly replacing baseball, politics, and television as my 'go to' awkward-conversation-starter-topic.
It is, of course, a fitting irony that England truly shines in making the weather of all things an interesting topic. Boring food, boring sports (cricket? give me a break), boring personality, but...exciting weather.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Readers, Ye Be Warned: Morbidly Philosophical...
Spring is upon us. At least it is here in merry old England. I do not know if the same can be said for the frozen and desolate wastes of Scandinavia or Texas. But as for me and my house, we are enjoying looking at daffodils and crocuses, at the snowdrops and the occasional flower that kind of looks like a crocus, but also a bit like a tulip, but it's not a tulip because those won't come up for at least another month.
You know the ones.
Spring is a most excellent season, particularly in England. Winter's grey is given way to hues of blue and green. Yes, you can quote me on that. Of course, it's still windy, still rainy, and still soggy, but the days are rapidly elongating with a reckless abandon not normally seen in a place like England. I don't honestly know how the locals cope, but I'm loving it.
And, of course, in springtime, a young man's fancy turns to love. In my case, since I already love my wife, my fancies go wandering among the various authors I've been reading of late. And, I should add, lest you think I am less than faithful, this sort of fancy is not one my wife would want or particularly thank me for. She is, I think, much happier that I expend it on (often dead) theologians and philosophers.
Right now I'm expending it on Karl Barth. For what follows it is not only unimportant that you have read Barth, it is probably unhelpful because then you'll just tell me how I'm wrong (which I probably am) and that that's not what Barth said.
You've got some nerve, fella. Let's put it this way: Barth inspired me.
First Principles (?): Karl Barth and Epistemology
Barth's theology is 'dialectic' working within the constant tension of statements about God of 'yes' and simultaneously 'no.' What we affirm of God we immediately deny, and somewhere between these we find God. How? We do so by God's revelation to us, which is primarily given in Jesus Christ in the Incarnation. This is the point at which God who is totally other to the world (no') reaches out to the world in his self-giving ('yes'). The Incarnation is the intersection point of 'yes' and 'no.'
Of course, this revelation is not an immediate one for most of us. Barth outlines the mediators between us and God as the Bible and, especially the way in which divine revelation (inspiration, the Word) is mediated by the human freedom and personality of the individual authors ('the words'). Likewise, when we approach the Bible we do not do so to gain a system of ethics or of philosophy, but to encounter the risen Christ. This we do also through the second mediator which is the Church. Although Barth's ecclesiology could not be called Orthodox, he does, at least, seem to have one. (Indeed, Georges Florovsky could have had much in common with Barth in the ways he chose to present his Rule of Faith!)
But, and here is where I will begin to part ways with the Karl Barth of history, taking his shade along with me as a guide into the mirky abyss of epistemology.
(Like the Divine Comedy reference? Like oil on the beard of Aaron...)
Definition: Tangent: a line which touches a circle at only one point
So. We have this picture of theology, or at least of its epistemological capacity, which could be described visually as a line beginning from a center-point and extended infinitely in both directions. At the center-point, this line is tangent to a circle. Remembering that it is possible to find a tangent for any point on the circumference of a circle, I'll explain what the picture means.
In one direction, the line approaches a negation, a 'no'. In the other direction, it approaches an affirmation, a 'yes.' Both 'yes' and 'no' are assertions we can make about God and are, therefore, positive. Yet it is equally clear that we cannot assert their synthesis or their resolution, and so the line itself represents the 'dialectic' of 'yes' and 'no', which is not itself assertable. We cannot simultaneously assert 'yes' and 'no' except in a hypothetical fashion.
Consequently, this line marks out kataphatic theology (in the two ends, each of which is assertable) and apophatic theology (in the line itself, unassertable). Apophatic and kataphatic are, under this representation, irreconcilable, irreducible, and inextricable. One may wonder if this is not the nature of all dialectic.
Anything we can say about God we find immediately leads us into tension. To affirm of God that he is love is, immediately to affirm that he is not love. Both positive and negative statements are, as it were, affirmative. God is not-love. Something else may be substituted for love--mercy, justice, holiness, etc. None of these are equivalent to 'hate' although some biblical passages imply the presence of 'hatred' in God. The point, however, is that there is a long list of possible alternatives to 'God is love' which can be substituted, each carrying an equally positive affirmation of God which simultaneously denies that 'God is love.'
In Christ we find, as the hymns say, that 'justice and mercy have kissed.' This line is from the hymns of the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple, and it perfectly illustrates the reality of Christ as holding together (in a kiss, in communion, in one flesh) the various 'yes' and 'no's of God's nature.
Thus, Barth calls the center-point (the point of tangent) Christ and I am inclined to agree. Christ (the incarnate, theandric Christ) holds together in one person (hypostasis) two natures (dua phuseis). These natures, like the 'yes' and 'no' of dialectic are irreconcilable, irreducible, and inextricable. In a sense, I think, this is what the Chalcedonian definition with its subsequent affirmations and qualifications in the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils (upholding to two wills and the two 'energies' against monothelitism and monenergism), was saying. Christ's person subsists not 'from' but 'in' two natures--the two natures do not coalesce into a synthetic 'third.' Rather they maintain their own integrity while being totally united. There is a simultaneous affirmation and denial which may be made of each nature in reference to the other--to say 'yes' to the human is, logically, to say 'no' to the divine. Yet in the person of Christ each of these receives its own 'yes' and the result is not antinomy but person--the unknowable that can be touched, the kiss of 'yes' and 'no'.
First Tangent: Apophaticism
But any statement we may make about God leads us into dialectically apophatic contradictions. And every one of these can find its center-point in Christ. Why? Because Christ is God and Christ is human--everything Divine is present, just as everything human. Consequently, anything we say about the Divine we say about Christ. Yet, in some sense, each of these statements is mediated through Christ's humanity. Consequently, the Divine is made tangible in a way commensurate with human thinking--dialectically tense statements about the Divine can be held together apophatically and related to the world we experience.
I must emphasize that this is not a Palamite 'essence v. energies' distinction. That distinction has little, if anything, to do with the Incarnation, whereas this theogical-epistemological model absolutely relies on it.
Critically, it is also true that the model of apophatic theology I have given is not simply a via negativa--a way of negations. The way of negations is, at its hear, still a way to something. Such a way proceeds by denials, but each denial can be made a positive statement (as above)--'God is not x' becomes 'God is not-x' and we still try to pin down God as the 'wholly other' the 'hyperousion.' In doing so, we have actually delimited God's nature as not being 'wholly same' or 'in the world.' Yet the Incarnation makes clear that these must be held together if we are to ever appreciate both the infinite incomprensibility of God and the infinite tangibility of Jesus.
Apophaticism, it seems, lies deeper. Apophatic theology maintains both via positiva and via negativa as affirmations. However, by holding to a strictly incarnational model, these affirmations are simultaneously held together at a center-point which does not attempt to resolve them. Therein lies something of what apophaticism truly means: a comfort with paradox, but not with paradox for its own sake--paradox for us. More of this later.
Definition: Epistemic Lens
To return to the circle. Actually, as yet, there is no circle. There is only a line and its center-point. But, each statement about God finds its center in Christ. Each point thus defined takes its place on a circle whose size begins to emerge, the more we say about God. Thus, the picture we end up with is one of a circle with an infinite array of lines, each one tangential, stretching out infinitely into the space in which the circle exists (this space I shall define below).
The easiest way, of course, to define a circle, is to take one point as the center (a), and one point some distance from that (b) and say that a circle is the set of all points equidistant with (b) from (a). The shape which emerges is a regular plane curve.
What I have outlined is, in a sense, the reverse. We've begun with some point and, rather than calling it the center, we call it a point on the circumference. We then find other other points and, as these emerge, we look for the circle which can fit them. (I assume it is a circle and not, say, an ellipse--an ellipse feels almost tritheistic to me, although one may say that a circle implies radical monotheism. Perhaps in 3-D space one can combine the two. How glorious would that be?) But the upshot of this reversal is that the circle (or whatever) is fuzzy. It is not the product of definition, but of experience, and its boundaries are not well-marked.
Such a process recalls the development of Orthodox theology--things are fuzzy until someone oversteps the bounds and then definitions clamp down and points on the circle emerge.
Because we do not define the circle from its center, we have allowed a sort of empty space within, a realm of possibilities. All we have given are certain boundary markers. One may say that whatever lies within the circle is 'in Christ' and whatever lies outside is, like those outside the sanctuary, 'without.'
What then? To return briefly to Barth. He suggests that we should relate to everyone by seeing Christ in them and by seeing them in Christ. At the same time, we offer advice, counsel--and receive it. We become like Christ and we allow others to become like Christ. But we do so in terms of how we see. We walk around with 'Christ-glasses', if you'll pardon the image. The way in which we do so, I think, lies within the geometric analogy I have laid out.
The circle whose boundaries are fixed by Christ leaves an empty space within. This space we may call the Constrained Constructible--that is, the realm of possible ways of seeing and speaking the world which are themselves defined by Christ. It is an epistemic lens, the filter through which we take in the raw, meaningless data of the world and construct meaning out of it. If we do so only in terms of what we can say of God through Christ, then we constrain the possible constructions to fit those primary and, indeed, primal bounds. Christ comes to function epistemologically as a way of excluding possible meanings and implying others. Thus, we see Christ in all things and in all people. Likewise we become increasingly capable of seeing ourselves within Christ.
Second Tangent: Meaning and Construction
What of the space outside the circle? This we may term The Constructible. That is, this space (infinite, it would seem) represents the totality of possible meanings which we can create out of the totality of data available from the world.
I do not call any of this the Knowable. Why? We are not dealing with knowledge as such. Rather, we are dealing with the ways in which we approach knowledge. At the most basic level, every approach resolves into a 'yes' or a 'no', but likewise every approach also takes on board other ideas, other constructions, maxims, first principles, etc. Like Euclid, each approach to knowledge begins somewhere and builds upward. Like Euclid, each such approach verges on 'system' and every system is limited. Consequently every approach is limited. This means that other approaches (Lobachevsky, Minkowski, Pascal) are equally possible, equally valid in the realm of construction. We limit ourselves each time we choose between them. Yet the other possibilites continue to exist, not merely in the abstract but because someone chooses them.
The circle defines a group of possible constructions (themselves infinite as the points within a circle), but delimits others. Even as it does so, it cannot help but imply others: a circle in space defines not only its interior but its exterior. In all parts of the surrounding space we find an array of lines radiating from the circle. In each direction, these lines point to certain possible affirmations--certain meanings which can be ascribed to the world and its content. Each of these statements are limited precisely because they hold 'no' or 'yes' and not, as Christ does, both.
The interplay of metaphysics and epistemology becomes clear at this point. The world is created by God. Therefore, the whole world and all its infinite possibilities relate back to God. Therefore we may say that any possible construction of meaning on the world is the same as a possible statement about God. However, most statements are limited in one direction or another and cannot affirm the dialectically tensed unity of Christ. Only statements about Christ which properly maintain both sides actually do describe God.
Preliminary Conclusion: Apophaticism Revisited
Consequently, the circle is an apophatic one. It is such not by being negative but by holding both positive and negative together. It is apophatic likewise because it is fuzzy--it boundaries are not clear until pushed and, even then, admit both interior and exterior. For every positive statement we make about God we must immediately qualify it negatively and then allow both to rest without resolution or synthesis.
Renee Magritte's painting Le Condition Humain
criticizes something very similar to what I've described. Here it shows us as limiting the world and, in fact, missing out on so much of it, precisely because of the boundaries and filters we use to interpret it. The WSOGMM, as Douglas Adams called it, is vaster than any approach, any system, any statements. The circle as I have described it, however, does not suffer from the problem of limitation. It freely admits not only the possibility but the actuality of surplus, infinitely more than what we deal with.
But it says to the space beyond: I cannot stray. That is, to step into 'yes' and leave behind 'no' is to misrepresent God and, in so doing, to misrepresent the world, and thus to appropriate it and relate to it in a skewed way. We end up in Aquinas' 'love distorted' as Dante lays out Purgatory: every good thing distorted into sin. The circle delimits sin epistemologically and relates that to praxis. We cannot do what we will not see. Yet exterior and interior are not so separate: 'yes' and 'no' collide at every point on the surface. The circle is, as it were, a vast zero-point, a center which can hold.
Maybe. We'll see. This is, after all, getting far too long for a blog post.
You know the ones.
Spring is a most excellent season, particularly in England. Winter's grey is given way to hues of blue and green. Yes, you can quote me on that. Of course, it's still windy, still rainy, and still soggy, but the days are rapidly elongating with a reckless abandon not normally seen in a place like England. I don't honestly know how the locals cope, but I'm loving it.
And, of course, in springtime, a young man's fancy turns to love. In my case, since I already love my wife, my fancies go wandering among the various authors I've been reading of late. And, I should add, lest you think I am less than faithful, this sort of fancy is not one my wife would want or particularly thank me for. She is, I think, much happier that I expend it on (often dead) theologians and philosophers.
Right now I'm expending it on Karl Barth. For what follows it is not only unimportant that you have read Barth, it is probably unhelpful because then you'll just tell me how I'm wrong (which I probably am) and that that's not what Barth said.
You've got some nerve, fella. Let's put it this way: Barth inspired me.
First Principles (?): Karl Barth and Epistemology
Barth's theology is 'dialectic' working within the constant tension of statements about God of 'yes' and simultaneously 'no.' What we affirm of God we immediately deny, and somewhere between these we find God. How? We do so by God's revelation to us, which is primarily given in Jesus Christ in the Incarnation. This is the point at which God who is totally other to the world (no') reaches out to the world in his self-giving ('yes'). The Incarnation is the intersection point of 'yes' and 'no.'
Of course, this revelation is not an immediate one for most of us. Barth outlines the mediators between us and God as the Bible and, especially the way in which divine revelation (inspiration, the Word) is mediated by the human freedom and personality of the individual authors ('the words'). Likewise, when we approach the Bible we do not do so to gain a system of ethics or of philosophy, but to encounter the risen Christ. This we do also through the second mediator which is the Church. Although Barth's ecclesiology could not be called Orthodox, he does, at least, seem to have one. (Indeed, Georges Florovsky could have had much in common with Barth in the ways he chose to present his Rule of Faith!)
But, and here is where I will begin to part ways with the Karl Barth of history, taking his shade along with me as a guide into the mirky abyss of epistemology.
(Like the Divine Comedy reference? Like oil on the beard of Aaron...)
Definition: Tangent: a line which touches a circle at only one point
So. We have this picture of theology, or at least of its epistemological capacity, which could be described visually as a line beginning from a center-point and extended infinitely in both directions. At the center-point, this line is tangent to a circle. Remembering that it is possible to find a tangent for any point on the circumference of a circle, I'll explain what the picture means.
In one direction, the line approaches a negation, a 'no'. In the other direction, it approaches an affirmation, a 'yes.' Both 'yes' and 'no' are assertions we can make about God and are, therefore, positive. Yet it is equally clear that we cannot assert their synthesis or their resolution, and so the line itself represents the 'dialectic' of 'yes' and 'no', which is not itself assertable. We cannot simultaneously assert 'yes' and 'no' except in a hypothetical fashion.
Consequently, this line marks out kataphatic theology (in the two ends, each of which is assertable) and apophatic theology (in the line itself, unassertable). Apophatic and kataphatic are, under this representation, irreconcilable, irreducible, and inextricable. One may wonder if this is not the nature of all dialectic.
Anything we can say about God we find immediately leads us into tension. To affirm of God that he is love is, immediately to affirm that he is not love. Both positive and negative statements are, as it were, affirmative. God is not-love. Something else may be substituted for love--mercy, justice, holiness, etc. None of these are equivalent to 'hate' although some biblical passages imply the presence of 'hatred' in God. The point, however, is that there is a long list of possible alternatives to 'God is love' which can be substituted, each carrying an equally positive affirmation of God which simultaneously denies that 'God is love.'
In Christ we find, as the hymns say, that 'justice and mercy have kissed.' This line is from the hymns of the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple, and it perfectly illustrates the reality of Christ as holding together (in a kiss, in communion, in one flesh) the various 'yes' and 'no's of God's nature.
Thus, Barth calls the center-point (the point of tangent) Christ and I am inclined to agree. Christ (the incarnate, theandric Christ) holds together in one person (hypostasis) two natures (dua phuseis). These natures, like the 'yes' and 'no' of dialectic are irreconcilable, irreducible, and inextricable. In a sense, I think, this is what the Chalcedonian definition with its subsequent affirmations and qualifications in the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils (upholding to two wills and the two 'energies' against monothelitism and monenergism), was saying. Christ's person subsists not 'from' but 'in' two natures--the two natures do not coalesce into a synthetic 'third.' Rather they maintain their own integrity while being totally united. There is a simultaneous affirmation and denial which may be made of each nature in reference to the other--to say 'yes' to the human is, logically, to say 'no' to the divine. Yet in the person of Christ each of these receives its own 'yes' and the result is not antinomy but person--the unknowable that can be touched, the kiss of 'yes' and 'no'.
First Tangent: Apophaticism
But any statement we may make about God leads us into dialectically apophatic contradictions. And every one of these can find its center-point in Christ. Why? Because Christ is God and Christ is human--everything Divine is present, just as everything human. Consequently, anything we say about the Divine we say about Christ. Yet, in some sense, each of these statements is mediated through Christ's humanity. Consequently, the Divine is made tangible in a way commensurate with human thinking--dialectically tense statements about the Divine can be held together apophatically and related to the world we experience.
I must emphasize that this is not a Palamite 'essence v. energies' distinction. That distinction has little, if anything, to do with the Incarnation, whereas this theogical-epistemological model absolutely relies on it.
Critically, it is also true that the model of apophatic theology I have given is not simply a via negativa--a way of negations. The way of negations is, at its hear, still a way to something. Such a way proceeds by denials, but each denial can be made a positive statement (as above)--'God is not x' becomes 'God is not-x' and we still try to pin down God as the 'wholly other' the 'hyperousion.' In doing so, we have actually delimited God's nature as not being 'wholly same' or 'in the world.' Yet the Incarnation makes clear that these must be held together if we are to ever appreciate both the infinite incomprensibility of God and the infinite tangibility of Jesus.
Apophaticism, it seems, lies deeper. Apophatic theology maintains both via positiva and via negativa as affirmations. However, by holding to a strictly incarnational model, these affirmations are simultaneously held together at a center-point which does not attempt to resolve them. Therein lies something of what apophaticism truly means: a comfort with paradox, but not with paradox for its own sake--paradox for us. More of this later.
Definition: Epistemic Lens
To return to the circle. Actually, as yet, there is no circle. There is only a line and its center-point. But, each statement about God finds its center in Christ. Each point thus defined takes its place on a circle whose size begins to emerge, the more we say about God. Thus, the picture we end up with is one of a circle with an infinite array of lines, each one tangential, stretching out infinitely into the space in which the circle exists (this space I shall define below).
The easiest way, of course, to define a circle, is to take one point as the center (a), and one point some distance from that (b) and say that a circle is the set of all points equidistant with (b) from (a). The shape which emerges is a regular plane curve.
What I have outlined is, in a sense, the reverse. We've begun with some point and, rather than calling it the center, we call it a point on the circumference. We then find other other points and, as these emerge, we look for the circle which can fit them. (I assume it is a circle and not, say, an ellipse--an ellipse feels almost tritheistic to me, although one may say that a circle implies radical monotheism. Perhaps in 3-D space one can combine the two. How glorious would that be?) But the upshot of this reversal is that the circle (or whatever) is fuzzy. It is not the product of definition, but of experience, and its boundaries are not well-marked.
Such a process recalls the development of Orthodox theology--things are fuzzy until someone oversteps the bounds and then definitions clamp down and points on the circle emerge.
Because we do not define the circle from its center, we have allowed a sort of empty space within, a realm of possibilities. All we have given are certain boundary markers. One may say that whatever lies within the circle is 'in Christ' and whatever lies outside is, like those outside the sanctuary, 'without.'
What then? To return briefly to Barth. He suggests that we should relate to everyone by seeing Christ in them and by seeing them in Christ. At the same time, we offer advice, counsel--and receive it. We become like Christ and we allow others to become like Christ. But we do so in terms of how we see. We walk around with 'Christ-glasses', if you'll pardon the image. The way in which we do so, I think, lies within the geometric analogy I have laid out.
The circle whose boundaries are fixed by Christ leaves an empty space within. This space we may call the Constrained Constructible--that is, the realm of possible ways of seeing and speaking the world which are themselves defined by Christ. It is an epistemic lens, the filter through which we take in the raw, meaningless data of the world and construct meaning out of it. If we do so only in terms of what we can say of God through Christ, then we constrain the possible constructions to fit those primary and, indeed, primal bounds. Christ comes to function epistemologically as a way of excluding possible meanings and implying others. Thus, we see Christ in all things and in all people. Likewise we become increasingly capable of seeing ourselves within Christ.
Second Tangent: Meaning and Construction
What of the space outside the circle? This we may term The Constructible. That is, this space (infinite, it would seem) represents the totality of possible meanings which we can create out of the totality of data available from the world.
I do not call any of this the Knowable. Why? We are not dealing with knowledge as such. Rather, we are dealing with the ways in which we approach knowledge. At the most basic level, every approach resolves into a 'yes' or a 'no', but likewise every approach also takes on board other ideas, other constructions, maxims, first principles, etc. Like Euclid, each approach to knowledge begins somewhere and builds upward. Like Euclid, each such approach verges on 'system' and every system is limited. Consequently every approach is limited. This means that other approaches (Lobachevsky, Minkowski, Pascal) are equally possible, equally valid in the realm of construction. We limit ourselves each time we choose between them. Yet the other possibilites continue to exist, not merely in the abstract but because someone chooses them.
The circle defines a group of possible constructions (themselves infinite as the points within a circle), but delimits others. Even as it does so, it cannot help but imply others: a circle in space defines not only its interior but its exterior. In all parts of the surrounding space we find an array of lines radiating from the circle. In each direction, these lines point to certain possible affirmations--certain meanings which can be ascribed to the world and its content. Each of these statements are limited precisely because they hold 'no' or 'yes' and not, as Christ does, both.
The interplay of metaphysics and epistemology becomes clear at this point. The world is created by God. Therefore, the whole world and all its infinite possibilities relate back to God. Therefore we may say that any possible construction of meaning on the world is the same as a possible statement about God. However, most statements are limited in one direction or another and cannot affirm the dialectically tensed unity of Christ. Only statements about Christ which properly maintain both sides actually do describe God.
Preliminary Conclusion: Apophaticism Revisited
Consequently, the circle is an apophatic one. It is such not by being negative but by holding both positive and negative together. It is apophatic likewise because it is fuzzy--it boundaries are not clear until pushed and, even then, admit both interior and exterior. For every positive statement we make about God we must immediately qualify it negatively and then allow both to rest without resolution or synthesis.
Renee Magritte's painting Le Condition Humain
criticizes something very similar to what I've described. Here it shows us as limiting the world and, in fact, missing out on so much of it, precisely because of the boundaries and filters we use to interpret it. The WSOGMM, as Douglas Adams called it, is vaster than any approach, any system, any statements. The circle as I have described it, however, does not suffer from the problem of limitation. It freely admits not only the possibility but the actuality of surplus, infinitely more than what we deal with. But it says to the space beyond: I cannot stray. That is, to step into 'yes' and leave behind 'no' is to misrepresent God and, in so doing, to misrepresent the world, and thus to appropriate it and relate to it in a skewed way. We end up in Aquinas' 'love distorted' as Dante lays out Purgatory: every good thing distorted into sin. The circle delimits sin epistemologically and relates that to praxis. We cannot do what we will not see. Yet exterior and interior are not so separate: 'yes' and 'no' collide at every point on the surface. The circle is, as it were, a vast zero-point, a center which can hold.
Maybe. We'll see. This is, after all, getting far too long for a blog post.
Monday, 11 February 2008
It's been, like, a month since I last posted. Can you believe that? I can't. And neither can you, I can tell. It has been a hellishly busy month but I think that I can now revert to my former ways. In some circles this sort of reversion would be called 'falling off the wagon' or 'recidivism.' I like to think of it as 'I ain't no quittah.'
Please note that my ghetto-tastic spelling of 'quittah' necessitate the otherwise intolerable double-negative. I think it also entitles me to three split infinitives and a drink of my choice from the bar between 5 and 7 pm.
I'm gettin' a cosmo.
I've been spending the last two or three weeks (I am, quite honestly, uncertain which it is) writing up the entirety of my research thus far. I keep thinking of a few minor points which I have neglected, but at this point, thank God, I have emailed the 'papers' to my supervisor. 23,000 words. 23,000 beautiful words. Words like 'the' and 'martyriological.' It's like drowning in champagne.
Well, extremely cheap sparkling wine, at least. I'm thinking Cook's. Delicious.
I think I've made some good points but more generally I'm glad to be done with that phase of my research. I cannot tell you how sick I am of funeral services. Well, I can try: so sick, in fact, that drowning in Cook's sparkling white wine actually sounds like an improvement. But, I'm done with it and can move from that overly morbid subject to something lighter, more appropriate for spring.
Martyrs.
Oooh yeah.
Now, are you as excited as I am? I thought so. I mean, who can resist such a bouyant, piquant topic. The theological equivalent to huevos rancheros with extra green chiles. Poblanos. You know of what I speak. You know this to be true.
Actually, I think that martyrdom should be a fascinating topos to look at. The martyr's death is often conceived as an imitation of Christ's death as far as we are able. Interestingly, however, in Byzantine hymnography, martyrs' deaths are never referred to in the same terms as Christ's death. There is an exciting tension between imitation and participation that arises from this situation.
It is likewise the martyr who provides the example which urges the ascetic onward. The ascetic tradition consciously sees itself as the inheritor or the martyriological tradition. If I cannot die for Christ, I will die to myself and live for Christ. Life is turned into a sort of dying, and dying is understood as the only true way of living.
The hope of the martyr is precisely the same as that of the ascetic: a greater reward hereafter than could possibly be attained in this life. One chooses death over life, because this life is indelibly stained by sin and corruption. Death to that provides the only means of orienting oneself toward the life beyond death, untainted by the Fall.
There is something not merely interesting about the ascetic and the martyr. He is a provocative figure, deliberately and often self-consciously defying everything intuitive about this life. He chooses to die, but never to seek death. He is hardly suicidal. To be suicidal requires, paradoxically, a profound attachment to the things and relationships of this life. It is because those have failed that one becomes despondent, wishing to die not to leave the things of this world but in despair of attaining them. The ascetic is precisely the opposite. Antony the Great who lived 107 years detaching himself from the things of this life only to gain them back transfigured.
There is something of the Knight of Faith in the ascetic, something deliberately absurd. The ascetic is Socrates transfigured by faith, Cato if he could have seen the good of this world and still died. The ascetic is a martyr, and the martyr is the Christian ideal.
So, I think this will be somewhat more exciting than the Byzantine funerary services.
Please note that my ghetto-tastic spelling of 'quittah' necessitate the otherwise intolerable double-negative. I think it also entitles me to three split infinitives and a drink of my choice from the bar between 5 and 7 pm.
I'm gettin' a cosmo.
I've been spending the last two or three weeks (I am, quite honestly, uncertain which it is) writing up the entirety of my research thus far. I keep thinking of a few minor points which I have neglected, but at this point, thank God, I have emailed the 'papers' to my supervisor. 23,000 words. 23,000 beautiful words. Words like 'the' and 'martyriological.' It's like drowning in champagne.
Well, extremely cheap sparkling wine, at least. I'm thinking Cook's. Delicious.
I think I've made some good points but more generally I'm glad to be done with that phase of my research. I cannot tell you how sick I am of funeral services. Well, I can try: so sick, in fact, that drowning in Cook's sparkling white wine actually sounds like an improvement. But, I'm done with it and can move from that overly morbid subject to something lighter, more appropriate for spring.
Martyrs.
Oooh yeah.
Now, are you as excited as I am? I thought so. I mean, who can resist such a bouyant, piquant topic. The theological equivalent to huevos rancheros with extra green chiles. Poblanos. You know of what I speak. You know this to be true.
Actually, I think that martyrdom should be a fascinating topos to look at. The martyr's death is often conceived as an imitation of Christ's death as far as we are able. Interestingly, however, in Byzantine hymnography, martyrs' deaths are never referred to in the same terms as Christ's death. There is an exciting tension between imitation and participation that arises from this situation.
It is likewise the martyr who provides the example which urges the ascetic onward. The ascetic tradition consciously sees itself as the inheritor or the martyriological tradition. If I cannot die for Christ, I will die to myself and live for Christ. Life is turned into a sort of dying, and dying is understood as the only true way of living.
The hope of the martyr is precisely the same as that of the ascetic: a greater reward hereafter than could possibly be attained in this life. One chooses death over life, because this life is indelibly stained by sin and corruption. Death to that provides the only means of orienting oneself toward the life beyond death, untainted by the Fall.
There is something not merely interesting about the ascetic and the martyr. He is a provocative figure, deliberately and often self-consciously defying everything intuitive about this life. He chooses to die, but never to seek death. He is hardly suicidal. To be suicidal requires, paradoxically, a profound attachment to the things and relationships of this life. It is because those have failed that one becomes despondent, wishing to die not to leave the things of this world but in despair of attaining them. The ascetic is precisely the opposite. Antony the Great who lived 107 years detaching himself from the things of this life only to gain them back transfigured.
There is something of the Knight of Faith in the ascetic, something deliberately absurd. The ascetic is Socrates transfigured by faith, Cato if he could have seen the good of this world and still died. The ascetic is a martyr, and the martyr is the Christian ideal.
So, I think this will be somewhat more exciting than the Byzantine funerary services.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
I am behind in my posting duties. I am, coincidentally, also behind in almost every other duty I know of. Are these linked? I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that by concentrating on my blogging duties I can effecitvely ignore my other, admittedly less pleasant, duties. I had originally intended a serious, heartfelt post in which I bared my soul and told the most appalling secrets. I've since abandoned that idea in an effort to cut down on my Louisa May Alcott references and also because I don't actually care for baring my soul to the swirling cybernetic void of Kaos and eldritch Night.
Please note, by the way, that I spelt Kaos with a K, like the director of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Fun fact: I just checked and the writer of that particular cinematic gem has a number of other fine films under his belt, ranging from Wrong Turn to Left Behind: the Movie. He is apparently working on the movie-version of Tekken. Why has one man, Alan B. McElroy been graced with so much talent? I don't know, but I am envious.
I'm currently getting ready to renew my student visa, go to Seattle, finish dealing with funerary rites, and, perhaps, find the real meaning of Christmas. All of these tasks have created numerous subtasks through which I must slog, like commandos through a Florida swamp at night. Under heavy enemy fire. And the enemies are all FSU fratboys. I'm not exaggerating.
Well, okay, maybe a little. But it still sucks.
However, the thought of Seattle with its concomitant waterfront, coffee shops, Gorditos, Taco Bell, Todai, Red Robin, Alderwood Mall, glorious fast-food capitalism at its most caffeinated--has me salivating like a rabid dog. I'm also afraid of water, which I am told is a bad sign. Either way, I am definitely excited to see some old friends, and, especially, to help a very dear friend get married. And to, you know, get his drink on.
I apologize now for the fragmentary nature of this post. It has been three days since I started it, and my mood has changed dramatically. Also, my vocabulary, which brings me to the point of this post. I've made up at least six more vaguely theological-sounding words since I began. Words like liturgiomartyrdom and metasushi. I admit up front that 'metasushi' doesn't sound particularly theological.
But it is. I shall define metasushi as:
Metasushi (me-tuh-SOO-shee) n. 1. a. That which comes before sushi; b. That which lies around sushi; c. That which comes after sushi. 2. Theological: refers to lengthy insertions at the end of some services, especially if those services fall on inconveniently placed fasting days, such that the feast becomes a fasting (fish, wine, oil) feast.
Thus, metasushi can refer respectively to a ravenous hunger for raw fish, to modern yet classic atmosphere and subdued conversation, or to green tea ice cream. When used theologically, metasushi can refer to the blessing of water on Theophany or August 1, or the Lamentations on Dormition, or pretty much anything that comes between the Prayer Behind the Ambo(n) and my lunch.
Now, I know you're excited. I mean, hey, who wouldn't be? I've just given you a new word. A new sign by which to communicate meaning, a new way of relating to the world, and especially to its recently demised aquatic population. However, I advise some caution in using this new word. Many people are not as well-informed as you are, since many people do not yet read this blog. They may be resistant to your newfound erudition, obstructing your grammatical liturgiomartyrdom by saying things like 'That's not a word' or 'That's not appropriate' or 'Who are you and what are you doing here?'
If they say these sort of things to you, you may wish to belittle them or to mock their verbal illiteracy. Resist that urge. We all know that a little honey catches more flies than insults do. Or something to that effect (I found it in a copy of G.W. Bush's old edition of Bartlett's). So, be nice, and bear with your weaker brothers and sisters who do not share your Spartan-like conversational prowess.
So, I know this has been a far cry from a deeply personal admission of thoughts and feelings. But it's been a good ride, with a few laughs, a few tears, and a little verbal abuse. What more could you ask for?
Please note, by the way, that I spelt Kaos with a K, like the director of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Fun fact: I just checked and the writer of that particular cinematic gem has a number of other fine films under his belt, ranging from Wrong Turn to Left Behind: the Movie. He is apparently working on the movie-version of Tekken. Why has one man, Alan B. McElroy been graced with so much talent? I don't know, but I am envious.
I'm currently getting ready to renew my student visa, go to Seattle, finish dealing with funerary rites, and, perhaps, find the real meaning of Christmas. All of these tasks have created numerous subtasks through which I must slog, like commandos through a Florida swamp at night. Under heavy enemy fire. And the enemies are all FSU fratboys. I'm not exaggerating.
Well, okay, maybe a little. But it still sucks.
However, the thought of Seattle with its concomitant waterfront, coffee shops, Gorditos, Taco Bell, Todai, Red Robin, Alderwood Mall, glorious fast-food capitalism at its most caffeinated--has me salivating like a rabid dog. I'm also afraid of water, which I am told is a bad sign. Either way, I am definitely excited to see some old friends, and, especially, to help a very dear friend get married. And to, you know, get his drink on.
I apologize now for the fragmentary nature of this post. It has been three days since I started it, and my mood has changed dramatically. Also, my vocabulary, which brings me to the point of this post. I've made up at least six more vaguely theological-sounding words since I began. Words like liturgiomartyrdom and metasushi. I admit up front that 'metasushi' doesn't sound particularly theological.
But it is. I shall define metasushi as:
Metasushi (me-tuh-SOO-shee) n. 1. a. That which comes before sushi; b. That which lies around sushi; c. That which comes after sushi. 2. Theological: refers to lengthy insertions at the end of some services, especially if those services fall on inconveniently placed fasting days, such that the feast becomes a fasting (fish, wine, oil) feast.
Thus, metasushi can refer respectively to a ravenous hunger for raw fish, to modern yet classic atmosphere and subdued conversation, or to green tea ice cream. When used theologically, metasushi can refer to the blessing of water on Theophany or August 1, or the Lamentations on Dormition, or pretty much anything that comes between the Prayer Behind the Ambo(n) and my lunch.
Now, I know you're excited. I mean, hey, who wouldn't be? I've just given you a new word. A new sign by which to communicate meaning, a new way of relating to the world, and especially to its recently demised aquatic population. However, I advise some caution in using this new word. Many people are not as well-informed as you are, since many people do not yet read this blog. They may be resistant to your newfound erudition, obstructing your grammatical liturgiomartyrdom by saying things like 'That's not a word' or 'That's not appropriate' or 'Who are you and what are you doing here?'
If they say these sort of things to you, you may wish to belittle them or to mock their verbal illiteracy. Resist that urge. We all know that a little honey catches more flies than insults do. Or something to that effect (I found it in a copy of G.W. Bush's old edition of Bartlett's). So, be nice, and bear with your weaker brothers and sisters who do not share your Spartan-like conversational prowess.
So, I know this has been a far cry from a deeply personal admission of thoughts and feelings. But it's been a good ride, with a few laughs, a few tears, and a little verbal abuse. What more could you ask for?
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
A Non-Theological Christmas Oration, in the Style of the Reverend James
Well, hello everyone! Christ is born, glorify him, yes yes, what what. I'm wishing you a merry Christmas, joyful Nativity, Craciun fericit, Nadolig Llawen, Kala Christogenna (sp?) from rural Wales. Here it has been a gray Christmas which, although similar to a white one, differs in one very important respect. It is much wetter and less festive.
Okay, two respects. The Monty Python fans will no doubt amuse themselves comparing my comments to the infamous 'Spanish Inquisition' sketch, while the better-adjusted, more sociable among you will undoubtedly revile them (and me with them) for the fact that we even know about such things.
Are you finished casting your contemptuous glances, muttering your disgust over the rims of your martini glasses? No? That's fine, I can wait.
Good.
Because Christmas is a time for love, joy, festivity. Where we were it also a time for meat, cheese, wine, mimosas, rum, whiskey, ale, mead, cocktails, beer, lager, stout, bitter, the Reverend James, personal abuse, and, of course, ham.
The Reverend James, by the way, is an ale. A tasty Welsh ale, brewed in the little town of Caergwyddorgwentforwywythdd. That's not a real town name, but it does bear an eerie resemblance to actual place-names in this vicinity. I like Wales, though. The people are friendly with an amusing accent, the towns are colorful--houses and shops painted in pastel and jewel tones--none of that Scottish puritanical 'let's paint it gray' attitude here. The town we're in has an excellent pub where we can procure the services of the good Reverend James; the local Orthodox community has a makeshift iconastis in the vestry of a Methodist curch; and the house we're in has a fresh supply of children--free-range, organic, children. They are pretty nifty, although their energy levels consistently outlast my own.
But when I drop to dangerous lows, I go join our host on his XBox 360 for Gears of War and other such mayhem. My attitude is: Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out--at least so far as it touches on mutant-alien-subterranean-shopping-mall-zombie types. And Communists. In the virtual world. In real life I am very kind to mutant-alien-subterranean-shopping-mall-zombie types.
I cannot, however, extend such generosity to Communists.
I expect that I will, in the end, find myself greatly indebted to Gears of War for my own doctoral research. I am increasingly of the opinion that my opening should consist of a sort of catena of quotes from the game: 'We should honor the fallen.' and, of course, 'Nothin' but bits.' This speaks profoundly to me of the significance of 'memory eternal' and the apocalyptic visions of universal judgment which we have inherited from the Byzantines.
Okay, two respects. The Monty Python fans will no doubt amuse themselves comparing my comments to the infamous 'Spanish Inquisition' sketch, while the better-adjusted, more sociable among you will undoubtedly revile them (and me with them) for the fact that we even know about such things.
Are you finished casting your contemptuous glances, muttering your disgust over the rims of your martini glasses? No? That's fine, I can wait.
Good.
Because Christmas is a time for love, joy, festivity. Where we were it also a time for meat, cheese, wine, mimosas, rum, whiskey, ale, mead, cocktails, beer, lager, stout, bitter, the Reverend James, personal abuse, and, of course, ham.
The Reverend James, by the way, is an ale. A tasty Welsh ale, brewed in the little town of Caergwyddorgwentforwywythdd. That's not a real town name, but it does bear an eerie resemblance to actual place-names in this vicinity. I like Wales, though. The people are friendly with an amusing accent, the towns are colorful--houses and shops painted in pastel and jewel tones--none of that Scottish puritanical 'let's paint it gray' attitude here. The town we're in has an excellent pub where we can procure the services of the good Reverend James; the local Orthodox community has a makeshift iconastis in the vestry of a Methodist curch; and the house we're in has a fresh supply of children--free-range, organic, children. They are pretty nifty, although their energy levels consistently outlast my own.
But when I drop to dangerous lows, I go join our host on his XBox 360 for Gears of War and other such mayhem. My attitude is: Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out--at least so far as it touches on mutant-alien-subterranean-shopping-mall-zombie types. And Communists. In the virtual world. In real life I am very kind to mutant-alien-subterranean-shopping-mall-zombie types.
I cannot, however, extend such generosity to Communists.
I expect that I will, in the end, find myself greatly indebted to Gears of War for my own doctoral research. I am increasingly of the opinion that my opening should consist of a sort of catena of quotes from the game: 'We should honor the fallen.' and, of course, 'Nothin' but bits.' This speaks profoundly to me of the significance of 'memory eternal' and the apocalyptic visions of universal judgment which we have inherited from the Byzantines.
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