Monday, August 24, 2015
Non-Linear Selfi
Non-Linear Selfi
Eternity:
all at once, no sequence
or
consequence--the “now” of be-
here-now.
Size makes no never
mind nor is it about time and
time
again. Simultaneous.
I accused
my preacher dad of having a
monumental
ego. “Yes, I do,” he said,
“but
mine’s crucified.” Consummation
devoutly
desired, no doubt. Dead, buried,
resurrected,
born again & again.
On the
psychiatric ward, after a shot
of
thorazine to calm my mania, I lost
ability
to speak for three days—no
mumbling
words. Helen Kelleresque
if you
don’t count sight and hearing.
Oh dear
God! is what I still say soon
as my
head hits the pillow. Prayer:
from Latin
precari – precarious.
Please
let me make my parents proud
is what
I’d pray in middle school. And
for an
English bike, too, 3 speeds.
That
would be good.
Yesterday
pre-dusk saw a couple deer
cross College
View toward Jones
Mt.
Last
night I crapped my pants trying
to make it to the john. Antibiotic my
wife suggests—side-effect. Reasons why.
A screech
owl quavering last couple of
mornings as
I get out of bed.
“Come and
See” were the bible words
that
provoked my old man into being
Christian.
His calling. Came to him at
a student
bible study group led by “Rip”
Van Winkle, provocateur: one of his
English pupils
at Exeter .
Years
later: Rip’s daughter, Annie
Van
Winkle at Oxford School
for
Girls in West Hartford , Connecticut :
O dear
God.
Miles
Standish would provide the
answers
to our 10th grade math tests,
him being
smart and taking the
exams in
4th period right before my
5th. Called
him “Dish.”
When
we moved from Johnstown ,
PA to West
Hartford CT : peanut
butter and
marshmallow sandwiches
were what
6th graders ate. First day
ever in a
school cafeteria, someone
asked me
to smell my cake and
pushed my
nose in it.
We bought
industrial staples and
heavy-duty
rubber bands and shot
the street
lights out of Linden Avenue .
Got into
Yale on a legacy. Into
Duke with
a handshake.
Privilege.
Entitlement.
Hierarchy.
Hegemony.
In the
40’s, my mother and the
Johnstown
Presbyterian church
ladies
boxed clothes to send to
boys at Farm School
down in the
upright
piano at the drunk and
homeless
shelter accompanying
my old
man’s Sunday supper
sermons. “Brighten the Corner
Where You
Are.” “Jesus wants me
for His
Sunbeam.”
Teaching
a class at NC State, I
began to weep
while reading
“Self
Reliance” to them. Sniffing
and
snuffling the rest of the period.
Should have
dismissed class but
made them
witness my cognitive
and affective
dissonance. Already
depressed.
Me and my
old man climbed Mt.
Pisgah
together—looking East at
My first
day ever as teacher ( 7th
grade at
Buckingham Friends
School) one of the mothers walked
in
looking for who’s-in-charge. Me,
I said. Her:
“I thought you were one
of the
students.”
I quit
dean-ing and then had my
first
panic attack. It suffers in
translation.
To die for. Chrono-
logic on
the one hand. Eternity
on the
other.
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ReplyDeleteLuther gets a square in Rome for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.
His father was terribly unhappy when he joined the monastery. He was smart enough to become something and his father had spent oodles of money on his books of law. But the interest in his son's education was not for naught. No privilege involved, however. Wittenberg University was brand new and Luther's father was in mining with the fortune going up and down.
Nevertheless, when I read Emerson speaking about great, forceful and earnest individuals, and mention Luther among them, I feel like Emerson did not get the point. You don't go out to be great. You don't go out to be self-reliant.
These things happen. You have got to be the right person in the right place with the right stuff happening and your heart in the right place. The most unlikely and humble people have made the right things happen. It does take courage. Courage, heart, is the thing, not self-reliance... Fear not. Little flock.
I'll keep that in mind. We're reading Emerson at the moment--discussed Self Reliance in class yesterday.
Delete"As James Davidson Hunter notes, the emphasis on potent individuals over enduring institutions tend to incline Evangelicals to a great man theory of political engagement." Ross Douthat. Bad Religion, p. 140.
ReplyDeleteGot my husband that book (or ahem for myself).
In a way a catechism is more individualistic, as it draws your attention to your own behaviours and responsibilities.
Enduring institutions are intergenerational.
ReplyDeleteRead Ross Douhat in one sitting. "Bad Religion. How we became a nation of heretics." He examines the American situation from useful angles. American heresies: prosperity gospel, god-in-me Oprah gospel, nationalism. Emerson he calls a "warm metaphysical bath."
ReplyDeleteHe would like Christians to rise above the fray of Republican vs. Democrat and work towards just goals within the party they feel more affinity for.
ReplyDeleteWe have Music Symposium this weekend focusing on international music with movement and percussion and without books or sheets. Fun, fun, fun, but what goes as hymns is Christless. The most we get is Halleluiah here and there. The poetry is evocative, and you can think yourself into it, but it still feel like a betrayal. But I will learn as much as I can from the conductor. Off now and out of your hair....
ReplyDeletea betrayal?
ReplyDeleteThere was one song among dozens that spoke about the blood of Christ. Even then she framed that saying that one needs to try and fit with the "idiom" of the local congregation. This is the World Council of churches stamp of approval. Vague and flexible. "Betrayal" is too strong? As Douhat says: when you go "pan"-everything you are not passing things on.
ReplyDeleteI took Auden out of the library. Everybody likes him. Brodsky adored him and Douhat brings him in as a specimen of a certain Christian age, now past. I learned a word from Douhat. Christianity is at the moment "déclassé".
ReplyDelete(Only one song out of the dozens.)
ReplyDeleteToo many pious goodies profaning the name? Don't know Douhat. You can imagine how "blood of Christ" might sound to any not raised in the tradition. Auden was gay, by the way. "How can we wait without idols?
ReplyDeleteHis lover left him. Great misery.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Douthat
He wrote a book on Harvard Privilege, too. I ordered a used copy. I first came across him being interviewed by some popular show host in a YouTube video.
Started the Auden last night. The individual stands for the universal. Seemed quite navel gazing so far. How can I read any poetry without Brodsky holding my hand?
I guess you can't.
ReplyDeleteI can see he is something of a virtuoso. He also changed his mind on a few things over his lifetime.
ReplyDeleteMarriage is the big issue for him, but he could not get constancy from his male lovers. It reminds you of Van Gough who always drew couples and yearned for a stable relationship.
In the last poem, in the book, he muses about myth and history. He thinks that myths were to people only excuses for ritual, most of them good, some bad. The crucified would not want to have had people sacrificed for him.
He has a thing for music, opera and grand emotion. much of it is outlandish, but that is great.
I quite love it myself finding it quite cathartic. The requiems, too, are a fabulous mind/body release. They should be sung and performed, not merely listened to.
To me marriage and fidelity overall are central topics for life and philosophy. And art. And converse action...
Imagination plays second to those real world concerns. Agape before Eros.
I think that is all the Auden I will do for now.
With that emphasis on reality, however, the Internet says that he viewed Bible story as "myth", the way you would define it.
ReplyDeleteIt makes no sense to me gloss over all the distinctions in the genres in the Bible collection and simply call it "myth".
In fact, the whole point of distinction made through archeology, and so on, is lost, when you call everything simply "myth". Seems extraordinarily intellectually dishonest to me.
ReplyDeleteYou are taking myth in the common sense--which generally sees it as unreal and like fiction. Originally myth is the word for our highest and fullest representation of reality (mythos) and ritual was the word for our actions, habits, physical response to mythos--worship, protocol, how we accommodate ourselves to the whole.
ReplyDelete.
Was the Romans conquering Palestine "myth"? Was the Caesar having himself celebrated "mythos"? For example? No. Romans conquering is fact. Caesar celebrating is a parade.
ReplyDeleteChrist crucified is a fact. The story propagated and celebrated all over the Roman Empire was newsflash. It's self-understanding is nothing mythical.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sarcc.org/Auden.htm
ReplyDeletePretty fluid all that about myth.
The significance and meaning of history and fact = mythos.
ReplyDeleteThe not wanting to know how history hangs together=postmodern.
ReplyDeletePostmodern is a descriptive term for most. A pejorative term for many. Myth,too: the same. How history hangs together depends on the historians and mythologizers who frame it in accord with their outlook.
ReplyDeleteCBC re leased its long list of 30 yesterday. I am not on it. The people and their stories look very interesting and accomplished, but it looks like they won't publish them all.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that means I can publish my story myself now? They did not even send an e-mail.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2015-creative-nonfiction-prize.html
ReplyDeleteSorry. Writers galore.
ReplyDeleteDon't quit your day job. Don't quit your spouse.
ReplyDeleteJust walked out of a class on Emerson--his American Scholar and Divinity School Address. No inclination to quit my day job. Unpostponed joy. Ann's my hero--so far so good.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, she has been tremendous. She and I could probably compare notes on dealing with mad genius type husbands. Anyways, that's what I tell my husband what he is and that sums it up pretty well. Can't live with them, nor without them. The name of the Lord be praised.
ReplyDeleteThis fall he has grad students in hospital dentistry.
ReplyDelete4 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
ReplyDelete7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it[a] says:
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”[b]
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions[c]? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Instructions for Christian Living
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 “In your anger do not sin”[d]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold. 28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
You know how I love big block quotes--being preached too when not solicited, Put this on a t-shirt and broadcast your piety.s
ReplyDeleteIt was today's reading. It hit the spot for me.
ReplyDeleteIs it the opposite of the famed raised consciousness?
ReplyDeleteLike lighting a match (lucifer) in a cave to study darkness.
ReplyDeleteLet Ares doze, that other war
ReplyDeleteIs instantly declared once more
'Twixt those who follow
Precocious Hermes all the way
And those who without qualms obey
Pompous Apollo.
Brutal like all Olympic games,
Though fought with smiles and Christian names
And less dramatic,
This dialectic strife between
The civil gods is just as mean,
And more fanatic.
Charged with his compound of sensational
ReplyDeleteSex plus some undenominational
Religious matter,
Enormous novels by co-eds
Rain down on our defenceless heads
Till our teeth chatter.
In fake Hermetic uniforms
Behind our battle-line, in swarms
That keep alighting,
His existentialists declare
That they are in complete despair,
Yet go on writing.
Impressive verse. Yours, yes? Good vs evil and I'm always on the side of good against evil. Imagine choosing identifing with the side of evil against good. "No man does wrong knowingly, " says Socrates. A satan is an accuser. Aren't we all?
ReplyDeleteAuden. Auden. Auden. Nice stanza type, what do you call it.
ReplyDeleteNo idea
ReplyDelete"Under which Lyre", at Harvard. Very witty.
ReplyDelete"How can we live without Idols?"--my favorite Auden notion, though I can't say where
ReplyDeleteit's from
Da dum da dum da dum da dum
ReplyDeleteDa dum da dum da dum da dum
Da da da da da.
Did not see anything snout idols, yet.
ReplyDeleteIt is the male ego, that is ever striking, in the poets.
ReplyDeleteI should read some women.
ReplyDeleteWhat's stopping you? (Give you credit for the dum de dum--your own words rather than someone else's.)i
ReplyDeleteThe Sam, he is, oh, such a hit.
ReplyDeleteHe does not trouble us a bit.
His view is Pollyanna.
All the idols he deplores
They are to him nothing but bores.
He must be in nirvana.
The third lines are seven instead of five.
ReplyDelete???
DeleteDa da da da da. 5 not 7
DeleteThere--was that so hard? What would I do without my idols? They light up my life--illuminate, so bright I can't see for seeing.
ReplyDeleteWhat women would you suggest? Not the super introverted ones.
ReplyDeleteI might be the first to rhyme Pollyanna with Nirvana. See poet's ego is kicking in already.
ReplyDeleteSusan Sontag: Against Interpretation.
ReplyDeleteWe have talked about her already. I don't know what she wants.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I will study Auden's schemes some more. He seems to know what he is exhibiting.
ReplyDeleteDorothy Sayers The Mind of the Maker
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_of_the_Maker
I will keep her in mind.
DeleteRhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest. (Auden)
ReplyDeleteMy interest is piqued, I think, because different meters gave different effect, and I am interested in the musicality and singing tone of it.
If I could make something, it would be a simple song, that could be easily adapted to various kinds of performance, something a grandpa teaches to his grandchild, like mine did to me, in essence a kind of catechetical experience, as the head of the household teaches.
https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=981&bih=625&q=grandpa+teaches&oq=grandpa+teaches&gs_l=img.3..0i24l6.5665.11336.0.13621.15.11.0.4.4.0.424.2383.0j8j1j1j1.11.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..0.15.2430.PmtmMXwSOSo#tbm=isch&q=grandpa+tells+a+story&imgrc=DUHPu05uZBjpjM%3A
ReplyDeleteSince Auden liked opera and librettos, maybe he was interested in the singability and the emotion suggested by the form, also.
ReplyDeleteWe all have this contrariness built in. Do we need to nurture it much?
ReplyDeleteQuote. New book translation, came in my mail. Luther's Works 67.
But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country," etc.
This is a sweeping aphorism: that a prophet is without honor in His own country. It is all too true. John 1 says something similar: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him." St.Paul, likewise, says, "They turn their hearing away from the truth" [ 2 Tim. 4:4]. And we see these horrifying signs in all the histories: that the Word of God is never so despised as where it is richly taught. Those who do not have it want it; those who have it despise it. Indeed, what is worse, heresies do not arise except amid the churches and from the churches. And this does not occur for any other reason except that they despise and disdain the Word, and then soon become judges over it. For if they did not disdain it, they would hear it in reverence and not stir up heresies.
Therefore, let this be our consolation, that our word--or, rather, God's Word--is held in disdain by the very ones who are closest to us and that it is no wonder that it should be disdained, not only by the peasants and nobles, the ones who have quickly had their fill of it, but even by the learned and those of our own household (or our fellow bishops), who seek to cast us down from the mountain (cf. Luke 4:29] so long as we refuse to speak and do the things they want. Here it is a matter of "the prophet in his own country," and as Matthew quotes from Micah [7:6] in Matthew 10 [:36]: "A person's enemies will be those of his own household." However, on the other hand, it comforts us that Jesus "passing through their midst, went away" [Luke 4:30]. They are not going to bring things to an end and must leave the prophet alone.
(Luther's Works, 67, p. 218. Annotations on Matthew.)
Cutting edge will be Ridiculous to the savvy, offensive to the conscientious. Especially if close to home "Who does he think he is, anyway?"
ReplyDeleteLook how he brings it all together and piles it up. He wrote so incredibly much. Maybe he was bipolar, too.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he was..
ReplyDeleteAuden has a poem where Luther comes up, but it is a body function poem. The thinker pose is to him one like one passing some stool.
ReplyDeleteAuden was funny that way.
ReplyDeleteCotton Mather , early Puritan theologian, claimed to get his sermon inspiration while in outhouse.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, it is a widespread experience, one I can't testify to.
DeleteYou probably would not find that sort of thing with the Romantics and Transcendentalists. It does not amuse me terribly much either.
ReplyDeleteBut who is a prophet and what is a prophecy--that has to be the question. He likely is rejected close to home and respected further afield. There is a clue. Other than that the cause has to be fair, just and loving, keeping peace and protecting the vulnerable from the strong and violent who might do them damage. He has to teach truthfully about God and what is good. This would likely include providing balancing views, as well as applying old insights to new situations.
In Biblical ways, ultimately the Solution can only be brought about by God himself, as we find ourselves wholly incapable of changing ourselves. To this end the preaching of the Messiah, who is the one to carry this out. In him there is freedom and our efforts are entirely free, in him. The prophet, too, is only his messenger.
Many are called. Few chosen
ReplyDeleteGoodness, that man Cotton Mather had an eventful life. What terrible business with the witchcraft trials.
ReplyDeleteHawthorne's grandfather was one of the trial judges.
ReplyDeleteI am not up on all that hysteria.
DeleteJesus always treated women with kindness and moderation. And taught the the value of the word. You have to love him for that.
ReplyDeleteMeek and Mild, wouldn't he be fun on a road trip?. Or a member of the band. I put him on my dashboard to bobble with kindness and moderation...Jesus o Jesus what a friend I have in Jesus..
ReplyDeleteHim we still adore while Plato sits under the bench. The philosopher king sounds like a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteXanthippe was right to dump the night pot on Socrates' head. I give her thumbs up. Way to go girl.
ReplyDeleteI have come full circle on her. She is my new heroine.
ReplyDeleteGo on a road trip with Plato, he will sell you to ISIS for breeding purposes.
ReplyDeleteHim you still adore--o come let us adore him. Why would Plato sell anyone for breeding purposes? What Would Jesus Do? Kind and meek and mild? The power of a foreskin!
ReplyDeleteThe Guardians will even have their families in common. Children will be raised in common and will not know who their real parents are. These children will also not be randomly conceived. They will be bred deliberately to produce the best offspring, as though the Guardians were a pack of hunting dogs. Even Plato realizes that such cold blooded match making might be too much for the Guardians, so he proposes that the process be kept secret from most of them. Every year, after the breeding committee, or whatever, secretly makes its choices, there is to be a kind of fertility festival. Everyone chooses names by lot, and the name they draw, or no name, is the choice of the gods for them. This is the kind of thing that Plato calls a "noble lie"; for the lottery is to be rigged by the breeding committee. Everyone will actually draw the name designated for them; and those who draw a blank were simply thought undesirable for offspring. The idea that people should be bred just like animals is usually called "eugenics" (eu, "well," and gignomai, "come into being" or "born") and was popular early in this century; but the only regime that has tried to formally implement eugenics was Nazi Germany. So it is not surprising that Plato thought this should all be kept secret.
ReplyDeleteProject Lebensborn. My older aunts might have been forced into it by they were classified "Mediterranean type", not Arian enough for breeding.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmothers however had special medals from Hitler for having many children.
Plato sucks.
ReplyDeleteSorry. He said horrible things.
ReplyDeleteO H. M Y G O S H. -- I forgot the spiritual meaning!
ReplyDeletePlatonic love
ReplyDeleteYa, sure. Good one, though.
ReplyDeleteI posted my story to the blog. See what you think of it, at your convenience.
I have a year's of bookkeeping to do.
Lovely weekend, though. We had a leisurely breakfast in the garden. The sun is so low, you have to keep it at your back.
http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.ca/2015/09/woman-at-mall-summer-2014-nonfiction.html
ReplyDeleteFine. It's a fine story. "Just Fine?" my wife always says when I respond to inquires about the potatoes or soup or whatever the main plate. "Yes, fine, for crying out loud. What is it about fine you don't understand? " I don't correct and I don't grade. My motto for anyone: "Write Yr Ass Off." You'll get better and good. "Compose and Be Composed"--which is the best motive for writing.
ReplyDeleteMost of the women friends I have shared it with talk about a similar experience. There are all the different ways men and salespeople come on to you. To me, most of all, it is the question of whether he knew or not that his village is mentioned I the Old Testament. To me it is possibly a post-post-modern question, if anyone knows what that is. There is also the question of when to complain and raise a stink and when not.
ReplyDeleteBut I tried to right from first person perspective and make it as "sassy", as a straight-laced old woman could make it.
I write to express, show off, provoke, impress, criticize, be profound, oracular,--I think that covers it, my motive. Obsession. Compulsion. Why else?
ReplyDeleteWhen my daughter married a childhood friend, I was glad. Some of us married from church youth groups. That was a nice, tightnit pool, too. Would you trust your daughter with Shalom? I would have to get to know him much, much better. I don't even know if the story about his dead friend is true, even though he looked so serious and sad.
ReplyDeleteMy dad was a salesman, also very dark in hair and skin tone, almost black in summer.
My daughter Liz is 52, probably your age. Has had & has male friends galore and a 9 year marriage. When not qt her job with horses. She is a down hill biker and travels all over to ride and compete. Bunch of colorful guys are friends. Jon--the same. similar ladies bountiful Trust? Shalom, Salaam, Salem--the peace that passes understanding.
ReplyDeleteHe, too, was a kind of underprivileged refugee. He had nightmares when he first learned his métier, feeling shy. But he became very good and he married way up the social strata, from the youthgroup pool. He was a great husband and father. I probably idolize him too much. He was very warm though he never hugged or touched.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I should be off the computer. The bookkeeping is almost done.
Liz and women like her amaze me. I have to force myself to physical activity.
ReplyDeleteBut that is not what you are saying to me. You are saying that they are serially monogamous or polyamorous. No?
ReplyDeleteIs that sort of thing beyond good and evil, sad, happy, healthy, ill? Would you rather have your daughter on a road trip with Jesus or with Plato?
Jesus had lots of women around, Plato not so much. Plato would not have had a woman on a road trip, I think. Those guys were more for the guys. Hm. But the ideal of beauty demanded polyamory.
Jesus was more for the guys--all 12. Me: I 'd take Carl and Bror. We'd have a ball. Talk about 2nd coming and young earth and rapture. heaven and hell
ReplyDeleteYou meant serial monogamy and polyamory, then.
ReplyDeleteIs that what I meant?
ReplyDeleteIf you will read your Bible, you will see that Jesus had many women friends. He had no selfish designs on them. He was not rude, oppressive and restrictive with them. He cursed them, looked after them, let them look after him, taught them, had Socratic dialogue with them, revealed himself the Messiah and the Ressurected one to them... He did not chase skirts or demand favours or submission. Very refreshing.
ReplyDeleteHe "cured" them.
ReplyDeleteGood for Jesus. Good for Brigitte. It's good to be refreshing and refreshed
ReplyDeleteYes, it is. Water in a thirsty land, goes one song.
ReplyDeleteThose are the best relationships, where you can be completely unguarded.
ReplyDeleteIn German "unbefangen"-- not caged, innocent.
Go and spin no more
ReplyDeleteAs Auden says reality, fidelity and agape are the thing, sexually messed up as he may have been. But he has to go back to the library now.
ReplyDeleteAuden may have felt it most keenly Because of his messy love life.
ReplyDeleteI liked him, and Brodsky and Frost, with their shortcomings.
Women feel it most keenly because of their particular burdens and joys.
ReplyDeleteIT?
ReplyDeleteThe real need for real fidelity and real agape.
ReplyDeletehttps://ca.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=C211CA876D20130710&p=Van+gogh+a+couple
Sex, of course is another thing. Sex is easy.
ReplyDeleteWhen you slide on a wedding band you say: I pledge you my love and faithfulness. So much rigmarole because it is so important, so desired-- and so hard. Yet, you almost seem to jinx it by overdoing. A quick, simple, early ceremony is better. Just do it and get on with life. Sex is the easy part and yet we are somehow hung up on it.
As Luther said and did: just get out and get married. And pray for a good spouse before. He was not praying though, maybe. He was proposed to. See, there was a smart woman. Katie von Bora was an intrepid soul.
Auden was a moralist who drank too much, a homosexual who thought homosexuality wicked, a subversive who chose to write in pedantically traditional verse forms, an eccentric opposed to the romantic theory of personality, a man obsessively punctual, sartorially sloppy. As a literary subject he is a gift to a biographer, a walking illustration, like Johnson, of Montaigne's observation: ''We are ... double in ourselves, so that we believe what we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.'' ''The Double Man'' is one of Auden's book titles. Limestone he singled out for praise in a poem because, as Mr. Carpenter notes, it ''produces a landscape which is as inconsistent and secret as the human personality.'' Auden's shifting and often inconsistent dogmatisms (''No gentleman can fail to admire Bellini'') are, like Johnson's, those of the orator who must constantly say interesting things in public.
ReplyDeleteFrom here. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/04/books/the-poet-himself.html
ReplyDeleteI try and try to say interesting things in public--or at least in class and Facebook
ReplyDeleteYou do. You are a ham. You make me laugh.
DeleteNo, you drive me crazy. Hm. Which is it really.
DeleteSince the scandal surrounding British poet and playwright Oscar Wilde, homosexuality has claimed no literary figure more prominent than the 20th-century Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973). However, after considerable personal experience, Auden delivered a remarkably negative judgment on this kind of sexual activity. According to a newly published critical study, Auden made decidedly negative comments about homosexuality during a 1947 conversation with Alan Ansen: "I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to be queer, but that’s a long story. Oh, the reasons are comparatively simple. In the first place, all homosexual acts are acts of envy. In the second, the more you’re involved with someone, the more trouble arises, and affection shouldn’t result in that. It shows something’s wrong somewhere." Nor did Auden’s perspective on homosexuality grow more favorable in the years that followed. In 1969, just four years before his death, Auden wrote candidly, "Few, if any, homosexuals can honestly boast that their sex-life has been happy." - See more at: http://touchstonemag.com/merecomments/2006/05/auden_on_homsex/#.dpuf
ReplyDeleteAs Tolstoy said: happy families are not interesting.
ReplyDeleteAre there happy families? They are happy in the same ways, he said. What did he mean?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. HAP happens. If I like it: happy. .
ReplyDeleteHere is a question I have been pondering: your answers and replies quite often seem to come out of a Rolodex, and it could just as well be anyone posting a haphazard response, and still they are writing prompts. How does that work.
ReplyDeleteI have to go to work, but am still sitting in PJ's with coffee. Douthat's book on Harvard privilege came. On the weekend we have to drive far for a funeral. Martin's old aunt and uncle were in a car accident. One dead, one in coma with fractures... The German relatives are flying in... They all fled the Russians once on horse drawn wagon, together, in winter...
Sorry about your relatives" accident. Hope the reunion is good.
ReplyDeleteI translated the story of the flight, written down by one of the aunts, if you ever want to read it--amateur biography. It is a little confusing with the frame story of their trip to Poland in later years, but I thought it was gripping.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good wishes. The funeral will be alright with lots of great hymns, well sung and played. The only worry is that we have more elderly travelling.
Send it.
ReplyDeleteI will look for a hard copy. For things that matter, I still like a book in my hand and even read out loud. It makes a profound difference to me. Strange.
ReplyDeleteWe talk on-line like this, but it is live. To bring an old story to life it needs to be spoken out loud. Then I can be like you and break down and cry. That is not depression.
It bothers me to no end when the Pastor does not do his Bible readings well. He can preach up a storm, but when he runs down the text, it has no texture. I could throttle him. Then there are readings in God-voice. They are awful, too, but I haven't heard that often.
Listening to Auden and Brodsky reading their poems on YouTube, they are quite forceful but understated, almost a rocking chant, like at the wailing wall.
If you don't want the clutter, I can send per computer.
ReplyDeletecomputer's fine
ReplyDelete