AUGUSTINE And DANTE
Thank you. My hospital tray is full of books which makes putting food there a bit frustrating for my wife. Ha! She’s a gardener; not a reader. And I’m home now but still in a hospital bed. So…
I had noticed this long ago when I got to study Augustine on a sabbatical at Duke (1975). In the Confessions, when St. Augustine hears the child’s voice he goes to the apostle’s book and reads the passage that changes his life; I would say the passage that truly opens Christ and Heaven for him, the joy and delight he experiences. What he says is delightful and wonderful: “I had no wish to read further, and no need. [bear with me; I’ll get there]. For in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in all my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away.”
Also important to my exposition, he goes into Alypius who also reads and indeed follows him into the Christ-centered “Kingdom of Heaven,” so too speak. Now Augustine can also give up the hold incontinence had on him and embrace the real fruitful virtue, Continence and/or Chastity, imaged as a woman. I would say Heaven opens before him in the image of light dispelling the darkness of his sin.
What strikes me also of central importance in my reading and studies is the parallel with Dante’s Inferno, where instead of the joy of Heaven we get the—again—first moment of Hell opening up before—again, two characters,
Paolo and Francesca, who are burdened with disordered desire, Augustine’s central sin, his inability to give up that incontinence, even the woman of the future marriage: Paolo and Francesca are also reading a book, this one about the sinful, adulterous love of Lancelot and Guinevere: Francesca says to Dante,
“For when we read that the much-longed-for smile / accepted such a gentle lover’s kiss, / this man, whom nothing will divide from me, / Trembled to place his lips upon my mouth. / A pander was that author, and his book! / That day we did not read another page.’ / And all the while one spirit told their tale, / the other wept so sadly that I fell / for pity of it to a deathlike faint— / and I dropped like a body stricken dead.”
[Anthony Esolen’s translation]
The terrible black wind of lust, the illicit kiss and intercourse, and Dante’s death-like faint all point to the consequence of the failure to give up—repent—one’s sin. Thus in contrast to Augustine’s experience described in the Confessions, his first moment of the joy of Heaven, we have the literary parallel described by Francesca in Dante, the first moment of the consequence of unrepented sin—Hell and eternal darkness and despair. Without God there is nothing to know but one’s sin.
Neither of the “characters” read further that day.
I love both Dante and Augustine. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about them one more time. I love all the parallels I see between the two marvelous texts. I am convinced Dante is drawing on Augustine here though I have never seen it referred to elsewhere. You may consider that my question. Ha! Thanks again.
Sincerely, and thank you for the online seminar course.
L. Eugene Startzman
(Former Berea College English teacher; retired 2008, I think)
I managed to copy and print! Can’t quite remember how I got it to print though. This brief note is a consequence of taking the online course by Dr. Royal on Augustine’s Confessions! It had been a long time since I last read it! I’m currently on Book 10. I’m looking forward to understanding the last four books this time, though I think it is ten that contains one of my all time favorite literary passages. LES
Sent from my iPad
ANGUISH and OLD SCRATCH
THEOLOGY 101
Lying on my hospital bed,
Unable much to move,
I twist and turn, roll and pitch,
All to relieve the torment
Of the Almighty God-sent ITCH!
“A theological perspective,” you say,
“In a moment of doggerel twitch?”
Indeed, if all things come from God,
Then so does the god-damm ITCH,
Considered thus his heavenly prod
Or a needed schoolboy’s switch.
Alas, I confess to a lesson well learned—
I’m a creature mired in sin;
But God persists in sending the ITCH
To torment my sinful sinful flesh, my external skin,
As if I had deep depths to see,
Having only scratched the surface.
Saint Augustine’s burning heart; an image from Rene Magritte (? According to my iPad). I should also reveal that I am rereading Augustine’s marvelous Confessions for a 5 session online course on the work. The course started last Wednesday (1/5) and is good. It’s sponsored by The Catholic Thing and, I believe The Faith and Reason Institute; the teacher, lecturer, is Robert Royal. No tests or papers. Ha! I love the image of Augustine used for the course, as well as the text, Frank Sheed’s translation with an excellent introduction by Augustine biographer, Peter Brown, and extensive notes by Michael Foley. The book is lovely with an excellent translation: new paperback = $14+ dollars from Amazon.
I like to think I’m getting the new year off to a good start. I even got the wound vac removed today though I am still unable to walk or get into the wheelchair. But I am determined to make it as long as I keep breathing, even with the plague of itches. Even the Egyptians would have capitulated quicker if they had been sent a plague of itches.
Sorry about the verses.
ALWAYS
Sometimes
Sometimes, I cry;
Sometimes, I cry because it hurts;
Sometimes, I cry because it hurts; Simon dies.
Sometimes, I cry because it hurts; Simon always dies.
Sometimes, I cry because it hurts a lot; Simon always dies.
Sometimes, because it hurts a lot, sometimes I cry; Simon always dies.
Sometimes, some independent clauses are always true, sometimes!
Sometimes, some independent clauses are not always true, sometimes!
Sometimes, some compound complex clauses are always true too, sometimes.
Sometimes they’re not!
I failed my little dog.
Now, I remember how, over two months ago Simon slid off the bed in the bedroom,
crawled down the long hallway, ended up at the foot of my chair in the living room because I
had fallen asleep and failed him. He didn’t deserve to die yet!
Simon, on the old sofa, over the side.
SIMON: REST IN PEACE
September 28, 2021
5:16 p.m.
Call It!
He rode in my lap all the way to the vets;
I looked in his eyes; I called off all bets,
For this is the way he will die;
For this is the way he will die!
Two bloody shots in his right front leg;
He didn’t fuss or bark or even try to beg,
For this is the way that he died;
For this is the way that he died!
He trusted our love and our gracious good will;
He put down his head and he accepted the kill,
For this is the way that he died;
For this is the way that he died.
Little dark dog, shivering in our black car;
Our last ride together, not going too far,
Only to the nearest hot, bright shining star;
Only to the nearest hot, bright shining star.
Every time I close my eyes, try to fall asleep,
I start to cry; nothing good is really ours to keep;
Thus I know the why that Simon died;
Thus I know the why that Simon died!
All I see this moment is Simon, on the vet’s table;
Head on his paws, his body stretched out, unable
To breathe just one more small breath;
Thus we have the portrait of Simon in death;
Thus we have the portrait of Simon in death.
This is what’s left when all life is gone;
Hope in our darkness, awaiting the dawn.
This is not Simon, for his essence is gone;
His doggie self has vanished, along with the sun,
Unless God restores him, our precious little one;
Unless God restores him, our precious little one.
Simon, our precious little one, in better moments!
Simon, last days. My precious little one.
DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON
In so far as we know anything about the consciousness of a little dog, I think it is fair and true to say that he enjoys being. Hmm. “Enjoys” suddenly seems false. Enjoys suggests the possibility of having a self and being able to step back, so to speak, and know what one is doing. Simon (the dog in question) simply does, simply is. [The social psychologist defines self as that which can be an object to itself]
It’s true to say that he has what I would call and understand as desires. When he wakes up on the bed, he barks until I come to see him and sit with him. He barks when he wants water; I know that is what he wants because he is quiet once he has drunk from his bowl. He barks for his supper around six p.m. if he hasn’t been fed yet. So, he gets hungry and thirsty; he gets sleepy and he gets something like what a person would call lonely.
Truly though the little dog, Simon, is a mystery, a creature whose real being is not really available to the human self. He’s a mystery in that sense, truly unknowable. He knows me, though that first means he “recognizes” me; second, it is impossible to give a meaningful word to how he feels about me. Likes? Has affection for? Takes pleasure in my presence? He wags his tail when I come to see him and pet him and scratch his ears, surely a sign of some positive emotion.
I missed him when I was in the hospital for two months; did he miss me? What he felt or experienced I will never know. He has been our [my] dog for 13 years. Mary had Frolie and Dexter and then Schuster. I had Simon. I don’t know how old he was when we rescued him from abandonment, from the crack house, from the owner who had gone off and just left him without food or water. 2009, it was.
I love Simon which means I have a tremendous affection for the little dog [storge, I suppose. One of C.S. Lewis’s four loves]. My “love” for Simon has to be/is different from my love for a person because, a dog is different in kind from a person. My feelings for Simon may be stronger than my feelings for a particular person—wife, child, friend, acquaintance, neighbor, etc.—but the feelings will be of a different nature. “Affection” can be present in me for both Simon and Wife, for example. However, my “love” for my wife goes way beyond “affection”; she is a rational being too and that makes all the difference in the world.
The problem here and now is that we are about to euthanize Simon. My wife finds being responsible for Simon a duty that is frequently beyond bearing. I am as responsible for him as I can be but my physical condition makes that fairly minimal. I would not find the taking-care part onerous if I were able to take care of him. I am not able. He can’t walk or control his doggy emissions. Mary has to do all the heavy lifting so to speak, literally and figuratively. I now have a wound vac attached to my body (right foot) which limits my behavior even more than it was before. Simon is thus a burden for both of us. We both “love” him, but we can no longer take good care of him. I have cried off and on all day. My eyes are wet now. I love the little dog. I feel that euthanizing him is wrong; he just can’t walk, after all. Other than that, he is an affectionate and beautiful little dog. Reason says it would be wrong not to euthanize him at this point. His condition has been going on well over a year. The quality of all three lives suffers, in truth, given all our situations.
The thing is, without Simon my life will truly be diminished. Simon is a gift; his presence, his beauty always point toward the source of the gift. I know where he came from, who provided him, in so far as I know anything. Except, however, the gift has become a burden. What then? I can’t take care of him as I should; does that mean it’s time to return the gift or give it up. Does Simon’s demise mean that nothing now can distract me from the love of God? Is that what Simon does? When I look at a good gift, I remember the giver. So, no. Simon does not distract me from the love of God; he affirms and enhances, intensifies it. The way his head, ears and neck curve slightly toward his body when he sleeps makes me see the beauty and complexity of God’s creation. That such a creature should be! God is good. God gives and he takes away. God is good.
I am grateful for Simon and for 13 years of affection and companionship. And I am sorry I am not up to the task of caring for him properly. My inability feels like a betrayal, though I didn’t afflict myself, and I suppose my failure always will. I will miss him terribly, even in this condition. Furthermore. as with any person or creature we truly love for itself, that person or creature (yes, pet) becomes part of us; our loves help define us for good or ill. If the person or pet dies, a part of ourselves disappears too. The loss, I think, is like losing a body part. We are diminished, not whole or complete in the way we were. Simon, like Pookie and Biscuit, is part of me. Once he is dead that part of me is gone too and his perked ears and his wagging tail responses to my affection will be only a memory. I may not know or understand much, but I know when a valuable part of me is missing. As I said I may not understand much but I am grateful for what I have been given, even if I now must let it go and give it back with tears, hoping and trusting that that really is the right thing to do, the best choice.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Simon died 9/28/21; about 5:16 p.m.
Simon: last days; death in the afternoon. A very good gift. Died 9/28/21
LANCELOT #2
THE DESCENT: The first point to establish clearly (this time, I hope) is the nature of the narrator’s perspective, his untrustworthy account of events and their meaning. The primary evidence for that is his several references to Dante’s Divine Comedy, in particular his failure to understand the real nature of Dante’s Inferno and thus of sin and evil. Lance, for example, says to Hal: ”Not even your church took it [‘the sexual connection’] very seriously until recent years. Dante was downright indulgent with sexual sinners. They occupied a rather pleasant anteroom to hell.” (17). This judgement is decidedly false, since after Limbo, Circle 1, the circle of the virtuous pagans, Circle 2, the circle of the lustful, is the circle of those viciously blown around and around hell by the black wind of uncontrolled desire. In Esolen’s translation, “I learned that such a torment [That hellish cyclone that can never rest/snatches the spirits up in its driving whirl,/whisks them about and beats and buffets them] was designed/for the damned who were wicked in the flesh,/who made their reason subject to desire.” (Canto 5: 31-33; 37-39). The lustful are truly in hell proper; there is no pleasant anteroom in hell, not even Circle 1, Limbo.
Lance’s glib assessment of Dante’s treatment of the lustful is repeated a few pages further in his narrative, as he is attempting to define the spirit of New Orleans: “This city’s soul I think of as neither damned nor saved but eased rather, existing in a kind of comfortable Catholic limbo somewhere between the outer circle of hell, where sexual sinners don’t have it all that bad, and the inner circle of purgatory, where things are even better.” (23). Things are only better in Purgatory because these spirits have seen and repented their sin and evil [WP’s Lancelot has neither understood his sin nor repented it]; on the other hand, the final circle in Purgatory consists of a ring of fire through which all must pass before entering the earthly paradise. Dante is terrified, and it takes Virgil and Statius to get him through. Once again Lance does not seem to have a clue as to the real nature of evil and sin, which will lead shortly to his Quest, to see if he can find a real sin. Also, as in Augustine’s City of God, there are only two cities in Dante: the Inferno where we find the City of Dis, and the Purgatorio and the Paradiso where we see the reality of the City of Heaven taking shape and existing, i.e. the Heavenly Jerusalem.
#1. [before I run out of energy] In the Inferno Francesca provides an important context for thinking about Lance and his unfolding behavior as she describes to Dante the cause of her situation in Hell in Canto 5: “Love, which allows no loved one not to love,/seized me with such a strong delight in him/that, as you see it will not leave me yet.//Love led us to one death. The realm of Cain/waits for the man who quenched our lives.” Paola and Francesca are reading the story of the adultery committed by the Arthurian Lancelot and King Arthur’s wife Guinevere; they read no more that day but commit adultery as well, the first moment of sin described beautifully by Dante! Note well, that the person who killed them (Paola’s brother and Francesca’s husband) is in the ninth circle of Hell. The analogous situation in WP’s Lancelot is that P and F are Janos Jacoby and Lance’s wife Margot, while Lance is analogous to P’s brother who is in the ice of Caina, where reside the unrepentant betrayers of kin. Margot is, after all, Lance’s wife.
#2. The Quest, early on with Lance’s awareness of Margot’s infidelity: “Can good come from evil? Have you ever considered the possibility that one might undertake a search not for God but for evil?….what if you could show me a sin? A purely evil deed, an intolerable deed for which there is no explanation? Now there’s a mystery. People would sit up and take notice. I would be impressed. You could almost make a believer out of me.” (51-52)
“My quest was for a true sin—was there such a thing? Sexual sin was the unholy grail I sought./It is possible of course that there is no such thing and that a true sin, like the Grail, probably does not exist.” (140)
”The mark of the age is that terrible things happen but, there is no ‘evil’ involved. People are either crazy, miserable, or wonderful, so where does the ‘evil’ come in?/There I was forty-five years old and I didn’t know whether there was ‘evil’ in the world.” (139)
”So overnight I became sober, clear-eyed, clean, fit, alert, watchful as a tiger at a waterhole./Something was stirring. Sir Lancelot set out, looking for something rarer than the Grail. A sin.” (140) Not to give too much away at this point, but it should not be too difficult to see that the sin Lance seeks is going to be what he himself becomes or, more accurately, what he himself now is. It will remain for him at the end of his tale to see that reality in himself, the rapist and murder. Again: Lancelot: “Very well. I’ve finished. Is there anything you wish to tell me before I leave?” Hal/Percival: “Yes.” Novel ends, or, it is left to the reader to see what now should be the clear difference between what Lance doesn’t see and what Percival does, and the reader should see too. But back to the process or perhaps better, back to the descent.
#3. Note that Lance immediately begins preparations and describes in detail those preparations to blow up Belle Isle, who will stay and who he warns to leave. Premeditation!
“Elgin, how would you like to make a movie?” (140)
#4. Note the change in Hal, after Lance’s rant against the present age, whom Lance begins to call “Percival,” the name also of one of the Grail knights.
“What’s the matter? You look stricken for the first time since you’ve been coming here. Ha ha, so at last I’ve gotten a rise out of you./What did you say? What happened to me?/What do you mean? Do you mean what happened at Belle Isle?/That’s in the past. I don’t see what difference it makes./You want to know what happened?/It’s hard to remember. Jesus, let me think. My head aches. I feel lousy. Let me lie down for a while. You don’t look so hot either. You’re pale as a ghost./Come back tomorrow.” (160; end of Chapter 6, of which there are 9 chapters, as there are circles in Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in the Divine Comedy; another possible allusion?)
Point: Lance doesn’t “see what difference” the events of the past make! In the quest for a sin, of course, they make all the difference in the world!
Point: Lance continually uses the name “Jesus” both as an expletive and as a reference to the Catholic priest, his friend Percival (see above). On page 84, for example, the connection between Christ and the priest is strongly suggested: “Jesus, come in and sit down. You look awful. You look like the patient this morning, not me. Why so pale and sad (“fond lover”)? After all, you’re supposed to have the good news [Gospel?], not me. Knowing you, I think I know what ails you. You believe all right, but you’re thinking, Christ, what’s the use? Has your God turned his back on you?” (Italics mine)
#5. Once you see the bipolar vision taking place, one of the delights in reading the novel is to see how the two perspectives exist together: Lance’s untrustworthy perspective and Hal/ Percival’s clear perspective/insight.
For example: He virtually rapes Raine Robinette: “I was alone, far above her, upright and smiling in the darkness.” (235) That is chilling, pun intended, as is his entire interaction with Raine that night before the house blows.
He then sees the adultery, after he enters “Margot’s bedroom, mine and Margot’s, that is.” (236). He finds Jacoby and Margot in bed together. “I didn’t see what I wanted to see after all. [the sin, the evil?] …. I knew only that it was necessary to know, to know only as the eyes know. The eyes have to know./But I did not see them after all. I felt them.” (236) Shortly thereafter, he fights Jacoby and essentially murders him: “We’ll never know what he wanted because his head was bending back and I was cutting his throat, I think. No, I’m sure. What I remember better than the cutting was the sense I had of casting about for an appropriate feeling to match the deed.” (242) The appropriate feeling, so to speak, will come.
When the house blows up the image Lance uses to describe his experience is revealing, as images are to be: “I ‘was wheeling slowly up into the night like Lucifer blown out of hell, great wings spread against the starlight.” (246) He unconsciously makes the identification of himself with the heart of darkness, Lucifer.
Apparently Percival asks him how he got burned since Lance had been blown away from the partially burning house: “I had to go back to find the knife.” (246; end of Chapter 8) A thing, like Excalibur, not a person, not his wife.
Then the “appropriate feeling” occurs in Chapter 9, though Lance doesn’t understand it: “The truth is that during all the terrible events that night at Belle Isle, I felt nothing at all. Nothing good, nothing bad, not even a sense of discovery. I feel nothing now except a certain coldness./I feel so cold, Percival./Tell me the truth. Is everyone cold now or is it only I?” (253) There’s the image from the final circle of Dante’s Inferno, which is spiritually where Lancelot is.
Lance, however, has a question regarding his quest which in itself is ironic given what he doesn’t see or understand: “The question is: Why did I discover nothing at the heart of evil? There was no ‘secret’ after all, no discovery, no flickering of interest, nothing at all, not even any evil….So I have nothing to ask you after all because there is no answer. There is no question. There is no unholy grail just as there was no Holy Grail.” (253)
With only the cold [of the ninth circle] there is no real humanity left in the person, no human warmth. Lance has become inhuman as is clear when he describes killing Jacoby: “All it came down to was steel molecules entering skin molecules, artery molecules, blood cells.” (254)
It’s clear at this point in particular that Percival, the Catholic priest, understands what Lance has become: “You gaze at me with such—what? Sadness? Love? What about love? Do you think I can ever love anyone? Explain the question./But that is beside the point. The point is, I know what I need to know and what I must do. Shall I tell you? Christ, you of all people should understand.” (254) Once again the double nature of the name is clear, the expletive and the identification of the priest as the sacramental presence of Christ, the sacramental presence dominating.
But Lance continues, “Come here and stand with me at the window. I want to show you something, some insignificant things you may not have noticed. Why so wary? You act as if I were Satan showing you the kingdoms of the world from the pinnacle of the temple.” (254)
There it is: Christ present in Percival versus Satan (the presence of evil) in Lancelot. And it’s Lance who again makes the unconscious identification of himself with that evil. What remains, on the one hand, is for Percival to show him what he has become.
Lancelot, I think, is an credibly rich and complex novel. Part of the joy of it is in seeing how various elements fit into the central reality of the quest for evil that is unfolding before us, and the way in which Lance’s and our culture is present in detail. Then there is the new woman, Anna, and how Lance understands her and how she fits in really. And the mysterious woman who appears during the hurricane, sort of the Lady in the Lake with the “sword,” i.e. the precious Bowie knife. Merlin and movies are at the heart of the experience too. All of these details relate to the character of Lancelot and the image of evil that he has become.
One last detail that clinches for me the meaning is the way one of Lance’s final comments relates back to the Dante epigraph: “You know something you think I don’t know, and you want to tell me but you hesitate.” (256) Percival has seen the city of the dead with Lancelot as the unconscious Satanic image of evil at the center. Yes?
A bit earlier, Lance comments on the emergence of the real sacramental presence of Christ in the priest who has resumed his priestly role: “So you pray for the dead. You know, something has changed in you. I have the feeling that while I was talking and changing, you were listening and changing. Am I wrong or have you reached a decision of sorts? No? You’re waiting for me to finish?” (254) Yes?
The clincher regarding Percival [the name is crucial now too, though it always was inherently]: “So you plan to take a little church in Alabama, Father, preach the gospel, turn bread into flesh, forgive the sins of Buick dealers, administer communion to suburban housewives?
”At last you’re looking straight at me but how strangely!” (256) Yes!
A teacher’s/critic’s confession: I am essentially an absolutist regarding understanding of works of literature. I know that there can be numerous and various interpretations of any given work of literature, but I believe that finally it is possible to see what the given work truly means. I think, for example, that I am right about what’s at the heart of Lance’s narrative. When I saw what the narrative was doing for the first time, I had an “Aha!” Moment! I read and taught for the “Aha!” moment, so to speak. Truthfully, they tended to be difficult and far apart, but when they occurred it made every moment spent reading and thinking worthwhile. My purpose as a teacher was to direct students how to see the “Aha! moment for themselves. How do the details of a poem, a short story, a novella, a novel come together to reveal the pattern and insight that is present in the work. One of my favorite authors with whom I have had the most success is Flannery O’Connor. Mrs. Turpin’s “Who do you think you are?” for example, reveals the heart of her sin and the nature of the unfolding action of the story. Or Parker, sitting under the (“fruit”/nut?) tree at the end of his story, “crying like a baby.” [The kind of tree is part of the meaning (pecan?), but I have forgotten, alas, without my text! The answer is always in the text.
Another favorite Aha moment occurred when I finally saw the pattern at the heart of Henry James’ The Figure in the Carpet! What a magnificent story that in a sense supports what I have been saying about the job of the literary teacher/critic. That story is about a critic who really doesn’t get “it” and who never will; it’s also, incidentally, about 3 readers who do get “it”! Who truly “see” into the work, to use that important metaphor.
And, a short story author I love but who frustrated me frequently: Eudora Welty! I remember dancing for joy when I finally understood Keela the Outcast Indian Maiden. [The title may be a bit off, but it’s close!] Sometimes it is almost as much fun not understanding as it is understanding. In either case the good reader begins to acquire the work of literature. If I have the energy and, of course, the life left I will try to illustrate that with Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, another work that I love.
Okay, as Porky Pig might say, “That’s all folks.”
Aha!
A MOMENT
A moment out of time: I-IT/I-THOU; A Moment of Grace
My body has acquired a new touch of misery: I have a “wound vac” attached to my right foot, with a long cord for the machine that does the pumping or pulling, as the case may be, and a stiff plastic hose that sucks up the nastiness that seeps from the wounded heel and lets it empty into the plastic canister attached to the machine. I can watch the nastiness defy gravity and travel up the hose to the machine where it is turned into some kind of jell-like crystal, and since the canister is an opaque gray plastic, I can even make out the crystals. The Vac is part of my new “exciting” day to day reality, part of my “everydayness,” as Walker Percy might say. However, something different entered my realm of the everyday world several hours ago that completely transformed reality for a truly exciting moment.
Apparently I had fallen asleep in my lift chair for a short while when I suddenly woke up and saw the magnolia tree outside the front window. This seeing was completely different from any other that I have ever had for there was a complete unity focused on the tree. It was as if everything that was had coalesced into that one beautiful thing: the dark green of the leaves with the sunlight glinting off some of them here and there as it filtered through the towering maple tree in front of and over the magnolia. The image is difficult to remember and capture as time moves on past that moment, and the vision was only for an instant. One of the advantages of having a mind packed with literary references is that there are a number of images to draw on for help. My experience reminded me of one the images from a seventeenth century poet, Richard Crashaw perhaps, who saw the universe in a grain of sand. Rationally, I understood what he said but I never really saw it myself until that metaphysical moment when the entire universe coalesced into that tree. Unfortunately that’s the best I can do. Now, looking out the window, I see dark green leaves blowing back and forth in the wind with sunlight getting through on the right side of the tree. Then, for an instant, I saw the tree. In a sense the difference was between seeing the oneness of everything for an instant and seeing the many. Our/my usual way of seeing is “the many.” Trees are made up of leaves and limbs. But underlying that, as Buber might say, usual “I-It” way of seeing is the “I-Thou” vision of unity. This moment was certainly different from any other that I remember having.
Another aspect of the experience that happened a bit later is that I opened my iPad to try to write down the experience, but the iPad opened to my kindle where I was reading Pope Benedict XVI’s A School of Prayer. The last thing I had read was this quote: “We too, dear brothers and sisters, must be able to ponder the events of our daily life in prayer, in order to seek their deep meaning in prayer. And like the first Christian community, let us too let ourselves be illuminated by the word of God, so that, through meditation on Sacred Scripture, we can learn to see that God is present in our life, present also and especially in difficult moments, and that all things—even those that are incomprehensible—are part of a superior plan of love, in which the final victory over evil, over sin, and over death is truly that of goodness, of grace, of life, and of God.”
My window with the magnolia tree on the far right overshadowed by the two maple trees, both of which grew in the yard from seedlings (circa 1972). The sunlit tree on the far left close to the house is a variegated dogwood. The magnolia had one lovely blossom blooming when I took the photo, though it looks as though the blossom is not attached to anything in the picture.
Miscellaneous Stuff
Pray: Antiphonal
“Pray for the hurricane victims,
Pray for the victims of fire.
Come down from Heaven to help us,
For our lives have become truly dire.”
Recall your flesh-eating super bugs;
Cancel that damn COVID virus;
Let bats eat mosquitoes ad nauseam;
Let aliens invade to expire us!
”Our hearts go out,” says Norah O’Donnell,
Extending to the fallen her love and grace.
What does that mean when the Anchor proclaims it?
Sincerity comes with a well made up face.
How can a news anchor speak for the nation?
How can she, night after night, so pretend?
Why doesn’t God send us all to the Devil?
Why must the Devil be our new best friend?
Sympathy oozes from all of my pores,
Sincerity’s my stock in trade;
Why would I lie to the public
When I am so super well paid?
One Dog, Two?
One Dog Wounded;
One Dog Skunked.
What now will one dog do?
The Odor of Defeat
Chipper chased a backyard skunk,
The skunk raised up his tail;
Chipper lost the battle grim,
The skunk is out on “bail.”
Chipper smells like something dead;
He’s now confined to “jail!”
Perplexed
My little dog’s Bewildered;
No, that’s not his name!
Simon can’t walk like he used to;
He’s Bewildered, he barked and I came.
I’ve tried to explain the problem;
Stuff happens, I try to explain.
All flesh is terribly vulnerable;
The result is usually dire pain.
Simon, however, is patient,
As long as there’s somebody there
To sit next to his sleek dachshund body
And keep him from doggie despair.
Would I could walk like I used to,
Would I could still romp and play;
Thank God my dog still loves me,
Thank God the world works that way!
Black and White
Chipper caught a skunk;
He shook it without fail!
The skunk shot Chipper
From right beneath the tail.
Did Chipper learn a lesson?
Be faster, smarter, wise;
Do not let yourself get shot
Right between the eyes!
Groan
I should be ashamed, and I am, mostly!
Simon on the bed, curious as usual, second time before us!
POCKET VERSE
Memory Loss
I keep forgetting what I’m all about;
I think I was about to meditate:
That’s why I’m on my knees with open book
About to seek a transcendental state
Wherein I’ll find that all is really all,
And politics another word for hate!
Awake
Simon barked, so off I go,
Each precious second not to waste;
The little dog seems not to know
The meaning between love and haste.
Pisces the Fish,
A tasty dish,
If you could find
Celestial spice
With lemon rind,
And heavenly rice!
The problem with Simon is treatment;
For his ailments there’s no real cure.
He lives between love and destruction,
The destruction we continually defer.
With only his front legs working,
He slides from our bed where he sleeps;
When no one comes from his barking,
He crawls—thus playing for keeps!
Simon on the bed for the moment!
STARLIGHT & MOONSHINE
I used to be able to go out at night to watch the ISS cross our sky, to track the planets, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, sometimes even Mercury. The Moon is always glorious, dare I say heavenly? I do not know how many times I have found and then forgotten various constellations. Two I can never forget are Orion and Sirius, defining between them the winter sky. Scorpius and Sagittarius are memorable too, moving across the southern shore; while frequently overhead I could find fierce Leo and my sign, Gemini the twins. The rest of the Zodiac tends to disappear into the fog of my memory, no matter how many times I have looked them up or found them above me. Two more come out of that fog, Auriga and Cassiopeia, with her W written large in the northeastern sky, perhaps, though not part of the Zodiac.
The Milky Way is always overhead one way or another with the northern cross to shine down a divine blessing, again, perhaps. If I were a poet I would turn starlight into intoxicating verse, light years into seconds, seconds into all the time I might have left. I love the nighttime stars with its constellations and asterisms, Ursa Major and the Big Dipper, and always end with shooting down Polaris, the North Star, to guide me safely home, now with tears in my eyes.
As l made for what passes now as “a mad dash” for the hall bathroom, I remembered Fairway Drive as it was when we, more or less, first arrived. There were no trees across the street from our house and we could see the entire ridge in the distance. For several years I could treat the ridge as my personal Stonehenge and watch the sun move (rise) from the distant south in winter through the seasons to the distant north in summer. I of course made charts, using the dips in the ridge line to keep track of place and date. The next year I could check for consistency and accuracy, though for a few years the project made me an early riser.
The most delightful memory of this project though was the year I talked my eldest child, John-David, into using the alignment of the planets, one of those somewhat rare celestial events that are (I think) delightful to behold: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. I remember rousing him one “morning” at 4 a.m. to behold the sky; I suspect it was winter but I have no clear recollection of the time of year, though it would have been the eighties. We kept records and made a large cardboard chart of the phenomenon. I was so very proud of him for doing it, mostly “for my sake,” I suppose, but bless him anyway and I will never forget that even though it was 4 a.m., he didn’t grumble but followed me into the vision. To this day he will call to remind us of certain celestial events that in our dotage we may have missed or to ask about certain bright stars or planets that he didn’t quite recognize. Like most things we dearly love the sky and stars, sun and moon, planets and constellations are a gift. All one has to do to accept the gift is to look up at night.
During the day, the clouds are a frequent gift bestowed.
That reminds me, in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, one of her early chapters begins with a marvelous contrast between what is happening overhead in the night sky and what is happening in the City underneath that sky that people are totally ignoring. The contrast is, I think, unforgettable.
How many suns does it take for Sirius
To brighten the long corridors of space?
QUESTIONS
No! or Know!
Why must it always appear to be “No!”?
You see, I seem to understand;
I say “appear”; I don’t demand.
So, why must it always seem to be “No!”?
I don’t ask for power, riches or wealth;
I don’t even ask for good health.
So, why must it always seem to be “No!”?
I ask to be good, or at least to be better;
Nothing helps; shall I mail you a letter?
Why must it always appear to be “No!”?
I pray for my family, my friends, myself;
I pray our creatures return to good health!
So, why must the answer always be “No!”?
Okay, I just want my little dog well;
A very small request, if truth to tell!
You keep moons on course, make galaxies spin;
Why can’t you ever just once let me win?
I just want my little dog well!
IMAGES
Time was when I could walk my wife’s garden paths, stop to admire the flowers, feed the turtles, feed the koi, but especially admire the beauty of each seasonal bloom. Day lilies were my overall favorites, such gorgeous colors, such vibrant varieties. I have a gallery of snapshots from my final year when I could still walk and carry my iPad and even hold it still enough for an instant to take the photo. That I have a decent collection of photos is due more to the perfection of my iPad than any skill I had. Of course, I had almost forgotten my early Spring favorites, the deep pink azaleas, growing throughout my wife’s garden, and then the new variety of pink redbud, with its deeper, richer color.
The thing I remember from our first visit to Berea, probably in the spring of 1967, was the blooming redbuds lining the highway running past the Berea hospital, and growing here and there throughout the community. And the lovely white dogwoods. In the forests surrounding civilization dogwoods are known as weed trees, I was told. They apparently have no practical value in a forest. And then there is the redbud, “flowering Judas,” always a betrayal somewhere close to our lives and loves.
I was looking out my front window again today at the lovely bank of green due to the large old leafy maples in front of our house. The green was lit again by the sunlight but this time I saw what Andrew Marvell May have seen when he made it an image in his seventeenth century garden poem: reducing all, I think he wrote, “to a green thought in a green shade.” If I live long enough and memory serves I will look up his wonderful poem to re-experience the entirety. This time, if I still can, I will memorize the entire passage: “The Garden.”
At 4 in the morning, on the way to the bathroom for the third time, I remembered Marvell’s word: I am fairly certain that it’s “annihilating” all that’s made “to a green thought in a green shade.” Easy enough to check, I suppose.
Incidentally, we think both basking, red-eared turtles ate all the goldfish in their pond and then vanished themselves. The fish, I understand, have been restocked, but not the turtles. That reminds me, we have an ancient box turtle that has lived in the garden for ages. One day he or she will appear somewhere; come back twenty minutes later and he or she is gone again. Amazing, creatures are amazing. The next time we see that turtle, it will be in a totally different area of the garden. Mary just told me that we now have two frogs in the turtle pond.
Eden
The Seraphim with sword of fire
Stands guardian at the glorious gate,
Forbidding us from finding ways
To mare His beauty with our hate.
DEVOTION
My old skin is thin; I am always cold!
Time was when I was, younger, even bold.
Not very, I suppose, the footsteps, faint,
Some distance behind me, a distant saint,
Perhaps, to beg a small gift for his cause;
Nothing in the dim sound to make me pause.
Nothing in the echoes to make me think
I might be standing, alone, on the brink
Of a farther shore without boat or need
To huddle by their fire, recite their creed.
I can no longer kneel, or sit in pew;
Most of my functions have disappeared; You,
Lord, know my physical disabilities,
Like a cupboard of useless utilities:
Frayed extension cords without current reach,
Old broken coffee pots with empty breach.
Start with the wounded, wrapped, infected feet,
Hands like claws, deaf ear, eyes that cannot meet
Those fierce eyes that look down my self to greet—
While I remain fixed firmly in my seat.
The Ninth Circle
When all human warmth has gone,
what’s left is heart of ice;
Dante’s final circle of Hell
is where we pay that icy price!
No cold comfort in that deep sink,
Just human treachery’s evil stink!
SNAPSHOTS!
There you sit behind your dancing sister,
Who with the Lord, Yahweh, must now abide;
This instant caught out of past time, unreal,
You, waiting, for me to cross the floor, hide,
Or seem to, what then did we, just kids, feel?
Most snapshots never show clear emotion,
In them, sometimes though, tender devotion.
They caught us kissing on the stair;
The snapshot shows we were a pair,
Once upon a time, so very long ago,
A moment only God can truly know.
Someone shot me on a county bridge top,
Shirtless, like a monkey, or circus clown;
Looking pleased is my unknown, ancient self,
Grinning from great metal heights, down, look down!
Cumulus clouds on a bright sunny day,
Delight anyone who might look that way.
The way, of course, is up for such a sight,
Unless you’re put off by the dazzling white.
FREE FALL
Falling: the Unknown Factor
All of a sudden the floor is not there;
I feel myself falling through unhindered air.
I know I will hit, I just don’t know where;
I know it will hurt, but it’s too late to care!
This time I hit my head on the door;
Both being hollow, I left off the roar!
Next went my right wrist, painful and cut,
Followed by elbow, right knee, and butt!
Inventory taken, I’m still in one piece
Though my wrist hurts like six, wild buckshot geese!
That’s six on the floor, six on my chest,
Geese falling all over: sure, I’m depressed!
I fell in the bathroom, fall number two,
Places about me are now black and blue!
Since I’ve fallen before, much to my shame,
I hate to admit I’m usually to blame.
Simon and a little of what’s left of me! One of my favorite Simon pictures!
LINES MISCELLANEOUS
After the coffee, after the red wine
I had two lines in my mind, but my iPad
Went wonky, and so did my mind, egad!
He slipped from the sofa, slipped then once more,
Hit with a thud on the hard wooden floor.
I hurried to see what damage was done;
Found him well stuck behind door number one!
My wife prefers beauty to orderly verse;
Thus, I have my coffin; she has her purse.
Subject is gone for the next forty lines;
Life is good for untangling dense vines.
How far is Alpha Centauri today?
Almost as far as it was yesterday!
Outside my front window, just to the right,
Grows a magnolia, magnificent, white.
So why am I grousing, beating my head?
Clearly because I would much prefer red!
The almost perfect white flower is on the upper right side of the tree; unfortunately, the sun tends to wash it out and I can’t fix it. Serves me right, I guess.
WALKING WOUNDED
Simon’s Desire
He slid from the sofa down to the floor;
His face soft and furry, eyes that implore.
He crawled toward my chair, inch at a time,
Desperate to get there, trying to climb
With hind legs that don’t work, unto my lap,
Little dog eager for affection with nap.
Many memories of good walks remain,
Small dog beside me walking with pleasure,
In sunshine, on blacktop, over the creek,
Best loved companion I ever could seek.
Now we’re both crippled, old, wounded and grey,
Hanging on to love with no more to say.
@
Simon the wounded, the old and the grey.
LANCELOT #1
In reading an excellent new [to my library] book by Anthony Esolen, “Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature,” (2007), I remembered that there were 3 essays that I intended to write about works of literature that I had taught. I had done the research but never got around to the actual writing. Sloth, the fourth of the seven deadly sins! Writing good critical essays is difficult, though very rewarding once they are finished and accepted by one journal or another. Authenticated, as it were.
The first text was Walker Percy’s Lancelot, which I taught several times in our senior requirement General Studies course. The idea of literary criticism is to see the story from the inside, so to speak. Lancelot, the contemporary “Arthurian” character, well aware of his name and its significance, tells us in his first person narrative (actually a dialogue, though the person with him does not have many lines), his adventures and their meaning in so far as he understands that meaning. [I need my text but so far I can’t find it since people! reorganized my rooms and life while I spent long days and nights in the various hospitals in Lexington and Berea! Alas]
Lancelot begins his tale from a cell in a mental institution / prison from which he can see out of a window but only read part of a sign [a key word] in the outside world. While readers and critics have attempted to guess the meaning of the complete sign, surely the idea is that the text is incomplete, and, as far as Lancelot’s story is concerned, the real text, his narrative, will be understood only once his tale is fully told to the other person with him, his childhood friend, now Doctor and priest, and that person is allowed a final comment. Lancelot, however, is one of those untrustworthy narrators who does not fully or clearly understand the meaning of the experience he is retelling. He lacks clear insight into what it means to be himself, especially after what he has done. After all he is in a cell because he deliberately and with premeditation blew up his house and killed his wife and her lover. And yet, he is about to be released from the mental institution where he is being held, as if he were “cured.” Welcome to the modern world, where sin and evil are outdated fictions we may happily ignore.
Lancelot’s story, then, recounts his discovery of his wife’s infidelity, and his murderous, premeditated response to kill both wife, lover, and himself. He achieves two out of three deaths, obviously, but is himself left alive to narrate the evil (how dare I call it that?) taking place. In the modern world [20th century] there is mental illness, but no such thing as sin and evil. And yet the story traces, through Lancelot’s narrative, his clear descent into Hell and the meaning of the sin that has taken him there. [If and when I find a copy of the text, I will illustrate my insight.]. [Okay, I bought a cheap third copy on the internet; why not?]
#1. The first insight the narrative offers is the author’s epigraph, a quote from Canto 30 of Dante’s Purgatorio: Beatrice, Dante the pilgrim’s central image of divine grace, is responding to the angels who have questioned why she is so hard on Dante since he has literally gone through Hell and climbed Mt. Purgatory to get to her; she really, severely, ruthlessly chastises him once he is in front of her:
“Look at me well! I’m Beatrice, I am she! / How did you deign to come upon the hill? / Didn’t you know that man is happy here?” (Anthony Esolen’s translation)
In essence Beatrice confronts Dante with his sin and his terrible shame at hearing that from her turns Dante to ice [ice is also Dante’s image for deepest Hell, the final circle where Satan stands frozen].
As snow among the living beams of trees / upon the mountain spine of Italy, / swept by the Slavic winds, will freeze, / Then turns to liquid, layer upon layer,…etc. / For when in sweet melodious tempering / I heard them [Beatrice’s angelic companions] take my part, as if they’d said, / “Lady, why do you sap his strength away?” / That ice that gripped me hard about the heart / turned to water and breath, and with distress / it came out through the mouth and through the eyes. (Anthony Esolen’s translation)
The point here for our Lancelot purposes is to see that the ice image for central Hell is in Dante, and is an image for the depth of Dante’s betrayal of the goodness and grace he was given in the presence of Beatrice when she was alive in Florence. Though there is more to her answer than the epigraph reveals, the relevant epigraph follows from the text of Lancelot:
“He sank so low that all means / for his salvation we’re gone, / except showing him the lost people. / For this I [Beatrice] visited the region of the dead . . .”
That is, Beatrice, awakened to the nature of Dante’s precarious spiritual state, descended into Hell [Limbo, the first circle where the virtuous pagans reside] courteously to ask Virgil to guide Dante the pilgrim through the circles of Hell [the region of the dead] so that Dante can see the horrible distortions that unrepented sin and the absence of God does to the human self. [I remember reading once, perhaps in one of Dorothy Sayers’ wonderful commentaries, that God drops our sin into Hell; if we insist on clinging to it, we too will find ourselves there. In other words, God sends no one to Hell; our presence there is a consequence of our own choices!] In essence, throughout the novel, we see through Lancelot’s eyes how he clings to his sin, which he doesn’t recognize as such—yet? Ever?
Lancelot’s friend, the disillusioned priest/doctor [the evidence for the priest’s spiritual crisis is in his [first] cemetery walk, when the woman at the graveside requests that he pray for the dead. The first time “Hal, Harry, Hotspur, Northumberland” refuses. The epigraph could thus apply to him [and the reader] as well as to Lance. For Hal, seeing the dead is seeing what Lance’s sin has done to Lance by the end of the novel; Hal would then become Beatrice to show Lance what the terrible sin in his life truly means.
At the end of the novel, last two lines, Lance asks Hal a question:
”Very well. I’ve finished. Is there anything you wish to tell me before I leave?”
Hal responds, “Yes.” If the reader has carefully attended to Lance’s story, he or she will know or see what Hal is going to tell Lance.
#2. The second insight the story reveals is in the beginning, the opening: an invitation.
Lance is the narrator throughout: “Come into my cell. Make yourself at home. Take the chair; I’ll sit on the cot. No? You prefer to stand by the window? I understand. You like my little view. Have you noticed that the narrower the view the more you can see? For the first time I understand how old ladies can sit on their porches for years.” (3)
The opening reveals that the novel is about “seeing”; about “understanding”; about the presence of the listener whose identity is immediately crucial. The second paragraph provides a context for Lance and a certain contemporary ambiguity.
“Don’t I know you? You look very familiar. I’ve been feeling rather depressed and I don’t remember things very well. I think I am here because of that or because I committed a crime. Perhaps both. Is this a prison or a hospital or a prison hospital? A Center for Aberrant Behavior? So that’s it. I have behaved aberrant you; In short, I’m in the nuthouse.”
The emphasis is important, for murder is obviously a serious crime: “Thou shall not kill.” Yet, Lance is leaving at the end of the novel, having spent a year there at the most. Murder unrepented would put Lance inside the City of Dis in Dante, in the circle of the violent against their neighbors 7; except Lance’s violence also involved Fraud, deliberate betrayal, which moves him again to the circles of Fraud Simple and Complex; that moves him down to the circle of ice, or 9. But Lance, as the reader shall see, is a nice guy, socially helpful, kind and good to black people [but pay attention to his language when he talks about them]; he is also a modern “knight”; he’s a college football superstar, unstoppable. SEC hero: he ran an Alabama punt from the end zone 110 yards, to score. His record is thus unbreakable!
“A cell like this, whether prison or not, is not a bad place to spend a year, believe it or not….A remarkable prison! Or a remarkable hospital as the case may be. And a view, even if the view is nothing more than a patch of sky, a corner of Lafayette Cemetery, a slice of levee, and a short stretch of Annunciation Street.” (And all these details and more on the first two pages of the novel, 3 & 4.)
So, place and person: Lance spends a great deal of effort, he says in Chapter one, trying to remember the person who is now in the cell with him. “Yes, I asked you to come. Are you a psychiatrist or a priest or a priest-psychiatrist? Frankly, you remind me of something in between, one of those failed priests who go into social work or “counseling,” or one of those doctors who suddenly decides to go to the seminary. Neither fish nor fowl….You’re the first person I’ve wanted to see. I’ve refused all psychiatrists, ministers, priests, group therapy, and whatnot. After all, what is there to talk about? I’ve nothing to say and certainly not interested in what they say.” (5)
Obviously, the past events in his life are the most important to the novel, Lance’s story, yet notice how they come to him and to us: “What? [Hal apparently asks him] Yes, of course I remember Belle Isle and the night it burned and the tragedy, the death, the deaths of . . .But I think that was because I‘ve been told about it and have even been shown the newspapers. / But you . . . I actually remember you.”
Ah, delightful. Later that night, after his friend is gone, he remembers something “on my own hook, without being told. My own name. Lance. Remembered your liking to pronounce all of it: ‘Lancelot Andrews Lamar,’ you used to say. ‘You were named after the great Anglican divine, weren’t you? Shouldn’t it have been Lancelot du Lac, King Ban of Benwick’s son?’”
Lance goes on to say, “It was as if I remembered everything but could not quite bring myself to focus on it. / I perceive that you’re not a patient but that something is wrong with you. You’re more abstracted than usual. Are you in love? / You’re smiling. Smiling but not saying anything. You have to leave? Will you come tomorrow?” [ Note: My slash indicates change of paragraph].
In Chapter two, Lance reveals that some of what he said before was a lie. He truly knows who his listener is: “I have a confession to make. I was not quite honest yesterday when I pretended not to know you. I knew you perfectly well. There’s nothing wrong with my memory. ….But I remember you perfectly, everything we ever did, every name you ever had. We knew each other by several names depending on the oblique and obscure circumstances of our lives—and our readings. I bet I remember your names better than you. [Hal’s names are obviously important]. To begin with, you were simply Harry, when you lived at Northumberland close to us on the River Road and we went to school together. Later you were known variously as Harry Hotspur, a misnomer because though you were pugnacious you were not much of a fighter. Also as Prince Hal, because you seemed happy only in whorehouses. Also as Northumberland, after the house you lived in. Also as Percival and Parsifal, who found the Grail and brought life to a dead land. Also by several cheerful obscene nicknames in the D.K.E. fraternity of which the least objectionable was Pussy. ….Later, I understand you took a religious name when you became a priest: John, a good name. But is it John the Evangelist who loved so much or John the Baptist, a loner out in the wilderness? You were a loner.
“So as you see, I remember a great deal about you. Right? / Ah, you smile your old smile. / Yet you prefer to look at the cemetery. / It makes a pretty scene today, don’t you think? All Souls’ Day. A pleasant feast for the dead. ….”
Further on, Lance sees something else out his small window with a view which is important to remember about Hal: “It was something I observed. / You were taking a shortcut through the cemetery. One of the women scrubbing the tombs stopped you to ask you something. Obviously she recognized you. You shook your head and moved on. But what could she have asked you? Only one thing under the circumstances. To say a prayer for the dead. An old custom here, particularly on All Souls’ Day. You turned her down. / So something went wrong with you too. Or you wouldn’t be here serving as assistant chaplain or substitute psychiatrist or whatever it is you’re doing. A non-job. Are you in trouble? Is it a woman? Are you in love? / Do you remember ‘falling in love,’ ‘being in love’? / There was a time when I thought that was the only thing that really mattered. / No, there were two things and two times in my life. ….”
To understand what being in love truly means, read Dante’s La Vita Nuova, especially, I think, Chapter 18 or 19 where Dante explains what he saw in Beatrice [and how she could definitely become the image of Divine Grace in the Comedy]. Then notice how Lance misses the mark in his story. (9-11) Yet he seems to have to have an idea about love that in some sense follows him through the story: Lucy Cobb, married her, she died; then Margot, married her, then she died [the how there is crucial]; then there’s the girl in the next cell, who was raped and horribly abused. Lance is “falling in love” again: “My heart beat as if I were falling in love for the first time.” (12)
From there Lance immediately turns to the events that have brought him to his cell: Then you know my story? I know it too of course, but I’m not sure how much I really remember. I think of it in terms of headlines.” (13) The headlines are of course completely wrong, as Lance’s retelling of the story will reveal. And thus begins our journey and Lance and Hall’s descent to the center of Hell, so to speak.
I decided to stop the narrative here before it gets any more disordered and try again to deal with Lance’s descent into Hell in another document. At least some of the insights should be clear here. Lancelot is a wonderfully insightful novel into the nature of evil in the modern world.
Sorry about the image quality but you can see from where it was taken: on my lap!
EITHER/OR
A good friend sent me a copy of an essay from the New York Times, 8/14/2021, by Ross Douthat, on faith and world-view changes. The article, by someone I always I enjoy reading, reminded me of an either/or I used to inflict on my students on slow days. I know, they thought all my class days were slow! Humph!
Douthat’s essay presents the either/or in a context that makes it compelling and devilishly interesting. My late night, clipped, want-to-sleep version. More later possibly.
It goes something like this:
EITHER: Mind gave rise to Matter, so to speak; mind, as Douthat explains, from the religious perspective, “precedes” matter. But is it true and how do you know? Of course, I come down on this side of the issue, being a Christian. Not to trivialize the issue, ha, C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew is a delightful imaginative presentation of the idea as Aslan sings Narnia into being. Another such rendering is Tolkien’s creation song at the beginning of the Silmarillion. Then of course there is Genesis, the Gospel of John, Augustine’s Confessions, and Aquinas, etc. A good deal of medieval and Renaissance literature finds this perspective inherent in it. Consider, for example, the great works: Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales; Spenser’s The Faerie Queene; Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, etc.; Milton’s Paradise Lost. Etc.
Look what happens to the perspective on human nature and divinity in the eighteenth century: the seminal work is Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Look at the way Swift’s imagination captures the “dissociated sensibility” now inherent in the new world view. Gulliver is not and cannot be a tragic hero like Lear; instead he is a “gull,” a fool committed to a truncated view of human nature who thus ends up sleeping with his horses rather than his wife. His limited perspective is inherent in the first three books of the Travels (why is the Queen so upset when he puts out the fire in her castle chambers in the way in which he so magnificently does, and thus vows never to use them again?); his perspective is made objectively clear in Book 4: he identifies with the “inhuman” rational Houyhnhnms and rejects the physical aspect of humanity in the Yahoos. God, from the Christian perspective, created characters with “right reason,” people who could think rationally and love, and who had passion. The rational horses in 4 do not have the capacity to love. Edmond in Lear and the two evil daughters use their reason to serve their self interest; they are quite good at it up to a point, but their reason is not “right.” They are evil; how do we know and what difference does it make? Wonderfully it is their very inability to understand right reason (which includes love and self sacrifice) that leads to their downfall. In the eighteenth century the idea of human nature in the world view undergoes a radical shift that includes the loss of something very precious, our capacity to love, especially our capacity to love God.
In my experience the most important quest image in medieval literature is that for the Holy Grail; my reason should be obvious at this point. None of these elements proves that the either/or idea I believe is true is actually true. I believe, however, that Mind “precedes,” creates, gives rise to matter. My basis for believing that to be true lies elsewhere in my experience. Truth, regardless of the age, needs to be at the center of one’s self. Much of Gulliver’s world is relative—big and little, little and big—but not everything. There is, I think, also an absolute present in his world too. And it is not difficult to see, though as always it is somewhat hidden!
OR: Matter gave rise to Mind. Given the “modern” materialistic perspective inherent in secular culture, this idea is not difficult for heirs of Marx, Darwin and Freud, etc. But again is it true and how do you know?
For now now that’ll do, Babe! Now it’s also to sleep, I hope.
Of course, that either/or fits into the fundamental, underlying existential question:
Why is there something rather than nothing?
[Oops! Neuropathy! I hit the wrong box. Ah, well. There are no accidents, so….written first late last night; obviously I have been back at it.]
Except for continuing, random editing, I think I am done. Regarding the final question In bold, one of the two perspectives surely must contain the answer, but that is always for the truth-seeking individual to discover.
Gulliver reluctantly taking his leave! There is no real change in the satiric character throughout literature.