Time's Rhyme

In timeless time before all time
The perfect good composed a rhyme
To bring into its own design
A chorus of myriad lines.

With voices blessed by author’s grace
The throbbing frames fill in the space
Uniting round the epic bass
Truth chants to keep the hymn on pace.

Knowing this score’s necessity
Unchanging beauty tunes to key
The orchestra’s cacophony
Conducting creativity
Along the staff’s set melody
To realize love’s harmony.

A Child of Body and Blood's Delight

Remember you were born of night,
The fruit of knowledge rent by seduction,
A child of body and blood’s delight.

With tissues broken by a bite,
Your innocence let to prostitution,
Remember you were born of night.

The skin alone succumbs to blight—
The seed encasing through contrition
A child of body and blood’s delight.

Deceitful is the serpentine rite
Slashing soul from life in desperation.
Remember you were born of night.

Breath, water, and dust unite.
From earth arises in regeneration
A child of body and blood’s delight.

Drawn at last from death’s appetite,
You may embrace the spirit’s unction.
Remember you are reborn of light
A child of body and blood’s delight.

On Denominational Differences

The setting: a Methodist church, waiting for the conductor to start Haydn's Creation oratorio. The conversation-starter: a Methodist hymnbook. The question posed to me by my friend: What difference have you noticed between the Episcopal hymnbook and the one we use at [a Southern-Baptist-background church]?

I have noticed a difference in attitude towards the second person of the Trinity, best described as the difference between the names "Jesus" and "Christ." Jesus is the Person who walked in Galilee, Who could be touched and hugged, and Who could heal and befriend. Christ is the Lord, God's Anointed, Who is coming in glory to judge the living and the dead.

It has been distinctly odd to come from a Baptist/Bible-church background into the Episcopal Church. Almost every Sunday I am singing songs I have never heard before. Some of them do have weird theology, but then what sort of theology is expressed by the hymn "In the Garden"? The overall impression is that Episcopal hymnody emphasizes much more the Christ, whereas Baptist hymnody emphasizes the Jesus. The one depicts a sovereign and lofty Lord; the other, a perfect and saving Friend.

My experience of the differing architectures and clothing styles has been the same, though admittedly my architectural experience is extremely limited. Episcopal churches (here I am not talking about churches that rent facilities) have a specific place for each function--Scripture readings, the sermon, Eucharist. There is a specific place that is holy. Worshipers bow towards it. Baptists do follow structural patterns, but their biggest issue (from Protestant roots) is that the pulpit be front and center. The only specially sacred places are the reserved pews that are never labeled but always respected. The atmosphere is much more casual. Instead of special vestments that distinguish the clergy and lay leaders, Baptist pastors wear suits (in formal churches) or good clothes (in informal churches). Admittedly, both denominations have their choirs wear robes--but that is more along the line of school uniforms.

These elements describe two different ways to understand our Savior: focusing more on His deity, or more on His humanity. I told my friend that I have been especially blessed to come into the Episcopal Church from a generally Baptist background. I have both the personal Jesus and the sovereign Christ. That is supposed to be the pattern no matter what church one attends, but as humans we have limited capacity for focus. There is a reason that Paul and other New Testament writers constantly refer to "our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

East Coker- Section 2

At the end of the last segment, the poet was reconciled, though reluctantly, to the interminable present. Here, he seems to have domiciled until he leaves the dancing days of summer and enters the natural chaos of November—a month that, in semi-temperate England, anything is possible. Summer creatures still thrive, snowdrops not yet risen from their summer deathbeds, late roses that battle with early snow. It is the verdant version of the eternal all-times the poet sang of in Burnt Norton.

This dance of all seasons is not limited to the earth. The stars turn in their courses, fighting to get one last glimpse of the earth they got to see so briefly. Scorpio, a constellation that bespeaks suffering and malaise is ordered by the Sun, the bringer of all-life, to wind his way thither. The pestilence fights and flees the light. The Sun and the Moon in time eclipse each other, and deprived of their light, comets weep as they cannot find either the sky or the plains. “Whirled in a vortex that shall bring / The world to that destructive fire / Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.” The sun rules the stars but it cannot rule the earth. An earth that is still under death sentence—the whirling dance of the stars brings life, but the passage of time only brings the world closer to the day when it shall pass into dust by ice and flame.

I would be remiss if I did not mention at this point that I have not a clue what I am talking about. And, unlike Cicero, I mean it. I am no Eliot scholar, nor particularly well-read. So, I write my thoughts and speculations firmly in the hope that the reader will forgive my inanities and deepen my expositions.

Now, onward to clueless speculations. The second stanza of the poem is to my mind, inscrutable. The poet seems to be unsatisfied with his own words, “A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, / Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle / With words and meanings.” He’s attempted to expound the mysteries of the universe in poetry and he has failed.

He asks, “What was to be the value of the lone looked forward to, / Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity / And the wisdom of the age?” What is the point of the hoped for future? Of the calm days before the death of winter? Is the lie in the voice of the wisdom, or is the wisdom itself utterly deceived? “Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?”

Eliot seems to spend the next few lines waffling between a despair of the value of all old knowledge and a condemnation of his ability to see it. In the phrase, “At best, only a limited value / In the knowledge derived from experience. / The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, / For the pattern is new in every moment.” He makes up his mind, he may not be able to grasp, or even trust, eternal truth, but the dance of life moves too quickly to trust more concrete, experience-won knowledge. He speaks again of deceiving, but only to say that the eternal wisdom only undeceives us of that which wasn’t worth knowing.

Yet, in this maze of deceiving and undeceiving, he steps once more into the wood between the worlds, and in that world “On the edge of the grimpen, where is no secure foothold, / And menaced by monsters, fancy lights, / Risking enchantment.” It is in this wood he finds his answer to the conflicts of many wisdoms. The secret is not lost in time, it is not found in experience or in the accomplishments of all sages. Rather, it is found in their folly, and through their folly, their humility.

Unlike all human strengths and musings, “humility is endless.”

When all the houses have fallen to dust, when all the dancers leave the wood, humility is all that remains.

Modesty

There has been a question that has puzzled me for some time.

Why are so many religions so concerned with the behavior, dress, and morals of their women? The only two religions I can speak conclusively about are Islam and Christianity, so I shall stick with those.

In both these religions, women’s behavior, in some ways, define the virtue of the family. Islam sets the rules very strictly. A woman’s dishonor, even a woman’s momentary immodesty leads to the dishonor of her whole family. Because of this, codes for proper feminine behavior are extremely strict: clothes, occupations, speech, nothing escapes the law of order. Reading the Koran, it is easy to see how this set of behaviors came about. Three rules appear to govern the matter: 1) women are much more inclined to sin than men, 2) men are easily led into sin by women, and 3) all hope of heaven rests in one’s good deeds outweighing one’s bad deeds. Given this paradigm, it makes perfect sense that father’s and husbands guard their women’s dress and behavior ceaselessly lest a moment’s inattention damns both their daughter’s soul and the souls of the men around them. The best of the Muslim community insists on the modesty and proper behavior of their women for their own protection, honor, and care.

The best of the Christian emphasis on women’s behavior—specifically dress and modesty, I believe shares similar sentiments. Fathers love their daughters and want to spare them the humiliation of being ogled or thought little of. Yet, this simple assumption of fatherly concern does not explain the constant parade of sermons, books, articles, and even dire warnings about the never-ceasing importance of a lady’s modesty. In fact, the only Scripture that readily comments on the issue is fairly innocuous and merely forbids obvious signs of intemperance or (in context) lewd lifestyle. 1 Timothy 2:9-10 says, “Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.” Even the model of all godly womanhood, the Proverbs 31 woman has no great mention made of her modesty. Rather it says she is clothed in strength and that all her household is garbed in the finest quality.

So, if the Scripture is vague—forbidding only extravagant or obviously lewd apparel, seeming even to commend a woman who can wear quality garments, why the sovereign importance laid on the issue in Christian circles? Especially evangelical ones?

I believe there are two primary reasons.

First, Protestantism in general and the Evangelical movement in particular are reactionary churches. They see a problem in the presiding church and community and take the opposite road. In the old Baptist movement, this meant a refusal to partake in things like alcohol, dancing, smoking, or cards. In the newer Evangelical movement, it has led to an emphasis on political action, specifically defending conservative values. This success in the political realm, depends, in large scale, in proving that it works. Conservative marriage, godly education, pro-life lifestyle, all these must be proved to function not only well, but better than the prevailing opinion. All of these functions depend largely on women: they must marry sensibly and for life, they must be prepared to raise up their children godly and conservative, and they must not sleep around or especially get pregnant, if they do, they must responsibly raise these children as well. In all, Christian daughters are the showcase on which the whole depends.

Second, it is a sexually promiscuous and dangerous age. There are countless ways for even the most innocent young woman to run into trouble. Children, boys and girls, are reaching sexual maturity younger and younger. Yet, with the evangelical emphasis on responsible, godly, and model marriage Christian youth are being required to delay marriage, and therefore, sexual gratification, longer and longer. Therefore, to keep all sexual purity and to further the cause of making the proper godly society, it is imperative that women do nothing to further provocate the already much worn masculine population. The Cause of righteousness and a good society are much too important to risk trusting the youth to behave morally when Christian and Secular society collude to make it as difficult as possible—keeping sexual images and acts always before young people’s minds while simultaneously telling them that for one sensible and moral reason or another that they may not marry.

De Tocqueville best summarizes the entire question. Tocqueville makes the case that women are primarily ruled by good principles, and as such, they are the ones that make the mores (or demeanor and attitude) of the culture. Women make order, and from that order comes prosperity. Conservatives realize this fact and therefore attempt to train their young women assiduously.

Yet, it should be noted, that Tocqueville says the greatest strength of American women is not that they are so strictly reared and guarded, but they that are taught to love virtue and live prudently for its own sake. Along with this, they are taught about the dangers of the world so that they are equipped to navigate it sensibly.

Christians, especially the conservative movement, highlights women’s modesty because they cannot complete their model of holiness or their mission for the culture. They have astutely realized De Tocqueville’s principle: women shape the mores. If Christianity can train their women thoroughly in their ideal model, they will eventually win. Therefore, Christians stress modesty far beyond any biblical backing for their interest.

East Coker -- II

II

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

That was a way of putting it - not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us,
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge inposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rahter of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.

East Coker I -- text

I

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

East Coker I -- Marriage and the Mystery

At the end of Burnt Norton, Eliot binds past, present, and future into one glorious Present. Yet, in the beginning of East Coker, he seems to reach a spiritual crisis—in sum, as he reconciles himself to a beginning he sees it as a death sentence. “In my beginning is my end” is the poet’s first cry, and from there he dissects the entire material world into their unbeautiful base elements.

It is a dismal picture—houses, homes, even in their genesis are reduced to dust. Old stone bows to the recycling of time and become earth, and all is reduced to “flesh, fur, and faeces.” He ends the first stanza in a depressed recitation of Ecclesiastes:

Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And a time to shake the wainscot where the field mouse trots
And the shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto

It’s not pretty.

Yet, in the midst of this dim reflection on the ultimate death of all things the author has not given up hope. He faces this specter of death and works methodically towards the jobs and joys of this doomed moment. First, by breaking himself loose from the present vision he allows himself to once more hear the music of the spheres. “If you do not come to close, / On a summer midnight, you can hear the music / Of the weak pipe and the little drum.”

This music leads him to one of the most, arguably the most important human duty to the present life, “dancing around the bonfire, / The association of man and woman / in dausinge, signifying matrimonie-- / a dignified and commodious sacrament.” It is interesting to note that Eliot chose to refer to the ancient rite of marriage through the words of Edmund Spenser...a poet who in his Faerie Queen made it a point to ally the human dance of man and wife with the heavenly dance of Christ and Church. In “this two and two, necessarye coniunction,” Eliot sees both the hope for the present and the point of the future. United in earth, we live to be united with Christ. We unite in earth to show us how to unite in Christ.

This concord is born of the greatest of all celestial delights, yet is spun of the lowliest of earthly joys. Rustic joys: clumsy dancing and good earth, keeping the time and tasks of the seasons. Only here, does the author acquire the proper Ecclesiastical spirit where there is “the time of the seasons and the constellations / the time of milking and the time of harvest.”

In the single day of existence, he realizes there is always the hope of the new dawn. There is a preparation for the end, but even as he faces wrinkles and old age, Eliot says, “I am here / Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.”

Technique of Delight ( in"A Clear Midnight" )

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death, and the stars.

Walt Whitman, “A Clear Midnight”

From its first phrase, “A Clear Midnight” builds an aura of wonder. Whitman carefully develops the mood to lift the soul in contemplation. But, how does this short poem so easily move one to quiet meditation? The answer is elemental. Every letter is perfectly chosen to fit the mood of its line. After establishing the poem’s quiet, elevated mood in the first line, the next three lines move the reader from the excitement of activity to the peace of meditation. As a true master, Whitman uses the elements of sound and rhetorical devices to delight and inspire the reader’s own soul.

From the first clause, Whitman creates a hushed setting. Entirely lacking mute consonants, “This is thy hour O Soul” (line 1) impresses the reader with a quiet and gentle ambiance. While the liquid letters establish a peaceful tone for the poem, the words inspire a meditative mood in the reader. Whitman begins contemplation of abstract truth with a direct address to the intangible soul. Combined with soft sounds of the consonants and long vowels, the elevated language of “O Soul” works from the quiet setting and lifts the reader into meditation.

The rise is punctuated and confirmed by the emphasis on “flight.” In the first line, only “flight” ends with a consonantal mute, while the other words are full of vowels, liquids and semivowels. Even the other two stops in “into” and “wordless” are softened by vowels and gentler consonants. According to Mary Oliver, “Within a line, use of a mute sound is like a tiny swoon, a mini-caesura” (Oliver 61). As the reader is forced to pause at the end of the word, he is given time to picture the implied metaphor. The alliteration in “free flight” ties the words together and brings up the traditional metaphor of the soul as a dove. By using slightly more powerful letters in the second phrase, Whitman and further lifts the reader’s thoughts builds up his exhilaration.

The second line builds off this energy to move the reader out of pressures and distractions. With a long vowel in “away,” Whitman places a distance between the soul and the business of the day. This is also emphasized his avoidance of mentioning the word “soul” in the line. Without even a pronoun reference, the soul is completely disconnected from both the line and the demanding work it represents. Whitman establishes the day’s agitation with heavy mutes in “books” and “art.” The oppressive consonants build the feeling that if the soul does not escape, books and art will trample it. Whitman demonstrates this detachment with the line’s ending. As the d’s enclose “day erased,” one can see the whole day closed and put away just like a book. At midnight, the soul leaves all distractions and finishes the day. Even so, another mute consonant in “done” emphasizes the break from stress while the liquid n closes both the line and the reader’s mouth. Whitman builds up the antagonistic energy with the power of mutes and uses the visual absence of the soul to argue that, as in the line, the soul must break with the day’s pressure and fly away to the quiet of midnight to meditate.

After establishing the flight from the cares of the day, Whitman transitions back to the soul and its meditation by returning to the softer voiced “Thee” and “thou.” With the opening vowels and consonant clusters he presents a fall from the forceful energy in the second line. Mary Oliver explains that liquids “suggest softness, fluency, motion” while a mute “is an enforcer of the self-containment, and so the certainty, of what has been said” (Oliver 61). Thus, the rest of the line returns to the initial sense of quiet elation by swelling the energy from the opening th’s to the gentler g’s within “emerging” to the hard t’s closing “lovest best.” In the description of the soul, one word stands out from the parallel –ing suffixes. “Silent” is not only set apart from the balance, but its t ending also helps to elevate it above the rest of the line. Like “wordless” from the first line, it hits on the poem’s main point. When the soul is engaged in meditation, it has no words to describe the beauty it contemplates.

As it rebuilds a meditative mood, the third line also returns to a more cheerful attitude. Whitman develops the thoughtfulness by using increasingly more forceful words. Yet, even with more stops, as in “gazing” and “pondering,” only the t’s particularly stand out. As the line ends, several technical devices focus the reader’s attention on the last two words. Once again, the reader lingers over the words because of the mutes’ natural pause. Furthermore, the slight rhyme ties together “lovest best” and multiplies the impact of the pleasant word and positive superlative. These devices effect a happy feeling as the soul fully embarks on its journey of wondering meditation.

The poem’s upward flight reaches its crescendo in Whitman’s final line. Fittingly, each of the beginning three words has a natural punch from a consonantal mute. Since they are the substance of the soul’s contemplation, “night,” “sleep,” and “death” rightly stand out from the rest of the poem. The hard consonants, however, also set them apart from the rest of the line and emphasize their significance. But, the stops only symbolize the weight that each word carries in its own meaning and the silence inherent in each. Although the first few words of the line hit the reader with their quiet heaviness, Whitman does not leave the reader depressed and weighed down. Rather, he ends the poem on a pleasant note.

The very last word perfectly encapsulates Whitman’s excellent use of words and sounds. In the end, Whitman again lightens and elevates the mood by metaphorically lifting the reader’s gaze to “the stars.” The final word inspires the soul in its meditative hour to think of great things outside itself. Here is the full culmination of the poem as the reader saying the last a in “stars” physically drops his jaw like the soul in silent wondering meditation in “A Clear Midnight.” Thus, Whitman proves his masterful use of sounds and letters, which gives the poem its inspirational power and encourages the reader to join the soul’s contemplative wonder.

Works Cited

Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

Whitman, Walt. “A Clear Midnight.” From Leaves of Grass, 1900. Bartleby. 17 April 2006. http://www.bartleby.com/142/283.html

Happy Memories

When Father Carves the Duck

E. V. Wright

We all look on with anxious eyes
When father carves the duck,
And mother almost always sighs
When father carves the duck;

Then all of us prepare to rise,
And hold our bibs before our eyes,
And be prepared for some surprise,
When father carves the duck.

He braces up and grabs a fork
Whene'er he carves a duck,
And won't allow a soul to talk
Until he's carved the duck.

The fork is jabbed into the sides,
Across the breast the knife he slides,
While every careful person hides
From flying chips of duck.

The platter's always sure to slip
When father carves a duck,
And how it makes the dishes skip!
Potatoes fly amuck!

The squash and cabbage leap in space,
We get some gravy in our face,
And father mutters a Hindoo grace
Whene'er he carves a duck.

We then have learned to walk around
The dining room and pluck
From off the window-sills and walls
Our share of father's duck.

While father growls and blows and jaws
And swears the knife was full of flaws,
And mother laughs at him because
He couldn't carve a duck.


HT: To Kristen, who introduced me to this poem.

Ten reasons to be in academia

I will post something educational-philosophically-related one of these days, but a conversation earlier today inspired the following list (not in order of importance, necessarily):

1. Constant immersion in ideas (good, bad, or indifferent) from the wide range of human experience
2. Constant contact with people who also have constant contact with those ideas (meaning that one can actually converse with them instead of having to explain everything)
3. A heightened appreciation for ever-subtler jokes (mostly puns – and then there is Bales, which is not a purely intellectual reference)
4. Having the pleasure of talking about the stuff one enjoys every week while school is in session
5. Related to that, the pleasure of having people pay attention to what one says (mostly)
6. For those who tend towards the sadistic, there is the pleasure of wielding power embodied in the red pen
7. Professors have .edu email addresses. That sort of email address can get lots of fees lowered.
8. One can justify favorite books because “I’m doing research.” (provided one doesn’t have a mid-life crisis in the middle of a semester)
9. One can justify having shelves and shelves of books – they’re one’s livelihood, after all
10. One has access to ILL services!

The Venerable Bede

I used to wonder what he ever did to earn that title, but after reading his book, I think I knew. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People is a very precise, very accurate, sometimes dry, but also mystical exploration of the Church’s founding and history.

Bede’s history is rich in all the historical details—who was king when, which people groups moved where and when, who executed whom. But the real beauty of the work is the miraculous. The book is mystically top-heavy. Without the knowledge that Bede personally authenticated all his recorded accounts, and the knowledge that modern historians have been unable to discount any of them, one would assume that he was simply making up stories.

Incorruptible corpses, chips from tombs that cure diseases of all kinds, springs that burst forth from the ground where martyrs were slain, all occur repeatedly within its pages. In many ways it is an optimist’s version of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It is a book about death, but an intrinsically hopeful view of death. Most of those mentioned die of natural causes—many of extreme old age. Most have lived lives of great piety and virtue, most are given visions of the exact time of their deaths. Their friends and compatriots are given visions of them escorted to heaven by angels of Christ himself. Death is inevitable, but it is either the gateway to eternal and everlasting beauty, or it is the gateway to misery beyond any human comprehension.

Amid the constant visions of heaven, one is forced to consider, do I take heaven seriously enough. Am I living as if I seriously consider that there is heaven and not reaching it is quite literally, “a fate worse than death.”

The more irreverent might wonder, “did those old Christians do anything besides die?” Well, they say “the blood of the saints is the seed of the Church” and Bede would prove them right. Every peaceful death of every Abbess, abbot, chaste queen, king turned monk, bishop, and eccentric laymen spurred on a new concentration of devotion and piety. Tentative lesson? Your manner of leaving life might be just as important as how you lived it. Now that is a thought to make one shudder.

We know how the saints died, but, how did they live? According to Bede, they lived by a code of constant self-denial, humility, chastity, study, and asceticism. In his praise of their lives there is a strong influence, and the accompanying weaknesses of Old-School Catholicism (such as if everyone was perfectly chaste producing the next generation might be a problem). But in a model that presents men and women who pursued the study of the world and Christ with never-ending fervor and willingly gave up meals two days a week to pray, at the very least one can’t complain about a measly getting up at 7:00 to go to church again. Protestants are quite amazing about how saying asceticism is unnecessary to true faith, but in reading Bede’s history I am forced to wonder what we are missing. Can 2000 years of church history be entirely wrong?

Bede’s work is readable, well-researched, convicting, and a thoroughly good read for anyone with any interest in church history or the balance between faith and reason.

Burnt Norton, Section V

Perhaps it is a mistake to try and unravel the magic of Eliot in stages. He is complex, he is abstract, and one must believe that the imagery is consistent, but it is difficult to maintain that consistency when one is analyzing in long-separated sequences. However, we try.

Throughout this segment of the poem, Eliot has been working with the divided cohesion of time. All time, past, present and future, are all gathered together in one picture, one glimpse, in the now. This last segment continues that thread.
“Words move, music moves/Only in time.” With the abstract nature of the examples, he identifies objects that possess an odd immortality, yet the epitome of a temporal life form. Words and music live only as long as the breath that summons them. Only in print can they live beyond, and even that is dependent on the book that holds them and the eyes that read them. They live, like humans, but they can live beyond, much like an antiquity, such as a Chinese jar.

Does this analysis have a point? Good question. I’d love to hear the answer. Yet, with words and music and antiquity, “Only by the form, the pattern,/Can words or music reach the stillness” dare I say? Of eternity? Yet, how does one grasp those living words that stretch into eternity. Not the “still of the violin, while the note lasts” but the stillness of a co-existence that ties the present to eternity. Words, and lives, without this binding to eternity break, crack, and crumble unto the burden of finding and upholding meaning.

Yet, like any works of art, words of import cannot be fully at rest. They are active, and as they are active, they are strained—the more important the word, the greater the strain. “Shrieking voices/Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,/Always assail them. The Word in the desert/Is most attacked by voices of temptation”

In the last two stanzas, Eliot once more binds himself to the overarching theme of the dances of time—a dance that encompasses the beautiful, the terrible, and the ever changing, the “disconsolate chimera.”

This dance of time is solved and made in the manner of the movement. It isn’t the pattern, it is the steps. I do not have an understanding of the ten steps. It is the perfect number, perhaps the Ten Commandments, perhaps the ten steps to heaven of Jacob’s Ladder. Desire makes a pattern but it does not define the pattern, love cannot move, it must be acted on within the will, and the motive of the will is what dictates its movement in the dance. In the words of Eliot: ends do not justify the means, ends determine the value of the means.

The pattern of the movement, left to itself, is dead, it is limited by its entrapment in a single dimension. It is unbeing and being, and therefore stuck. One must see the forward and backward movement of time, but one cannot treat it like an ancient vase trapped in the present in a museum case that will stolidly be sent forward in time. The movement of time is not a still picture of academic interest. No, rather to live, it is like a “Sudden shaft of sunlight/Even while the dust moves/There rises the hidden laughter.” It is a lively, intricate, joyful and beautiful dance that we enter as children. Left as an academic exercise it is “Ridiculous the waste sad time/Stretching before and after.” But, it has the trademark of "hidden laughter/of children in the foliage."

Where is Eliot going and what was he doing? In Burnt Norton, Eliot stripped away the reader's unimaginative acceptance of the mere present. He challenges them to see the present as a rich continuation of the past, and both binding the future. In short, everything one does echoes all of the past and all of the future. No pressure. He furthers the challenge. Do not be burdened by this and be like the cowardly servant that was given a talent and then buried it. Rather approach this mysterious, powerful, and utterly beautiful whirligig of time like a dance, like a note on a violin, like dust motes in the a beam of light. Knowing this, is successfully reaching childhood.

The paradox, all we do has eternal weight, yet we cannot know all of what we do. As to the Eliot's own continuation? That waits for East Coker.

Without Excuse

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:18-23, ESV)

In my Omnibus class this month, we are studying portions of Genesis, Exodus, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Code of Hammurabi, as well as some Egyptian history. My students, I am happy to report, are horrified at the wickedness of the ancient nations and are constantly pointing out how different the pagans are from the Jews. However, my reaction has been a little different. It is amazing how close the Egyptians and Mesopotamians were to the truth, and yet how far they strayed from it.

During our study of Genesis, we read the flood narratives from the book of Genesis and from The Epic of Gilgamesh. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, who is the Noah figure of Sumerian mythology. The story of Utnapishtim and the flood is obviously mythical: Utnapishtim is warned about the flood by a god whispering through the reeds of his house, it takes Utnapishtim only one week to build his ark with the help of all his neighbors, and the earth was flooded for seven days. On the other hand, the story is a close parallel to the story of Noah, and many details are similar.

The part of the story that struck me the most came at the end of the flood, when Utnapishtim sends out three birds to look for dry land: first a dove, then a swallow, and finally a raven, who finds land and never comes back. Noah sends out a raven first, who does not return, and then he sends out a dove twice. The similarity of the detail is too striking: there are three birds, one of which is a dove and one of which is a raven. The Sumerians knew so much and were so far from God. Truly, they understood the significance of the flood, but they still refused to turn to the true God for salvation. They were without excuse and followed the foolish desires of their hearts.

Between Genesis and Exodus, we learned about the beliefs of the Egyptians in the Old Kingdom, who built the pyramids. The ancient Egyptians believed so strongly in life after death that their earthly life became a great preparation for the world to come. According to these people, each person had a ba (a soul) and a ka (a spiritual copy of the body). In order for a person to have a happy life in the afterworld, the body was mummified so that the ba and ka could recognize the person after death. Today, people think very little about life after death, and cremations are a popular option at funeral homes. However, as Christians we know that our bodies will be resurrected and perfected at Christ’s second coming. We have more authority than the Egyptians on life in the world to come, and yet we care less about our heavenly future and resurrection bodies.

Next week, my class will be comparing the law of Moses from Exodus with The Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi, given by the king of Babylon around 1800 B.C., is famous for being the first written law code. Many of Hammurabi’s laws are similar to the laws in Exodus, reminding us of the passage in Romans 2:14-16:

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of God is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

Even though Hammurabi did not receive a special revelation of the law from God like Moses did, he still saw much of the same truth, leaving him and his people without excuse.

Through all these instances, God has left knowledge of himself in the hearts of men. The Epic of Gilgamesh shows how oral histories passed down the story of the flood in Sumerian culture. The Egyptians realized the importance of the physical body in the world to come, and Hammurabi showed that God’s law is written on the hearts of men. Although the ancient peoples chose to ignore this knowledge of God, the signs are still there.

This summer, I was lamenting that I did not get to read medieval literature with my students. I enjoy medieval literature, because it is a Christian response to pagan literature and philosophy. However, I have realized in the last month that ancient literature still has a connection to Christianity: it shows the world that Christ came to save, and it shows clearly that men are without excuse. Once again, I am excited to be teaching about the ancient world.

Burnt Norton, Section 5

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Announcing the boldest move in remembered history since 1066 (and all that). Little Audrey and friends have been working for years and are now prepared to publish A Memorable Philosophy: Containing the briefest summary of sophistry a sophomore can instantaneously recall.

Here's how it works, guys, choose your favorite (or anti-favorite) philosopher and write up a precise on his life and works. Usually discouraged, sources may be used if necessary to avoid plagiarism. Wit is preferred, but accuracy is not required. Tag post or comment submissions with the line "Memorable Philosophy." Dueling entries will be handed a pair of foils. Submissions will be evaluated, critiqued, and edited by a team of highly sophisticated professionals. The results will be compiled for the authors' pleasure. If it is any good, the editors will consider more lucrative options for publication.

If you have any questions, ask away.

This should give you the general idea:

Socrates

Socrates is the father of philosophy because, like any good founder, patriarch, or ancestor, he is best known for dying (thus initiating a long and glorious tradition of discussing the meaning of life).


Early in life, Socrates heard an oracle declaring him the wisest man. Convinced that this was wrong, Socrates set about to prove it right. Through the dialectic method, he succeeded in demonstrating both his ability to ask pointed questions and his talent for confusing the original point.


After hearing him declare, “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing,” the Athenians promptly convicted him of atheism and corrupting Nietzsche. Socrates appealed by asking for money and calling himself a fly, clearly showing that he had never known the man. Since the Athenians did not believe in executing the insane, they merely asked him to have a drink.


Unfortunately, Socrates later drank himself to death. Upon his deathbed Socrates revealed the nature of the human soul, secrets of the after life, and the first rule of morality, “et tu brute,” meaning “eat true bread” (often mistranslated “drat you brute!”). The most important of these insights were, however, lost with the island of Atlantis.

Burnt Norton, Section III, and IV

Long overdue they are, but here be the analysis of Burnt Norton Sections III and IV.  Good news, we are almost to East Coker.

A recurring theme of the work seems to be “time present and time past” the contemplation of the past accompanied, or inspired by, the swift-flowing insolvency of the present. While the present is vivid, it is moving too swiftly to provide rest or answers. The past, is captured in staccato images—images that mix the beatific with the mundane, “garlic and sapphires in the mud.” Artistically, there is nothing to capture the poet in the past or the present; he must chase the future. Here, “is a place of disaffection…neither daylight / investing form with lucid stillness / nor darkness to purify the soul.” The scene is reminiscent of Dante’s Paradise for Pagans. There is a loveliness to it, but the scene is haunted by an incompleteness, a sense that so much more beauty would be possible, if you could only see the Sun. But, there is hope, this poet can and will strive for the Son. In an almost Siddharthic cleansing, the empty whirl of time and image are “emptying the sensual with deprivation / cleansing affection from the temporal / neither plenitude nor vacancy.”

Also, as in Limbo, the poet is not alone. In the congestion of nothing he is accompanied by people—or is it memories?—all filled with the same yearning, yet chasing it in different directions. “Distracted from distraction by distraction” like an over-caffeinated student writing a paper in the early morning, they get distracted from the bunny trails to chase the bunny trails, all the while forgetting that they were supposed to be hunting bear. They are reduced to “Men and bits of paper, whirled by a cold wind / that blows before and time after.” They yearn for the future, they can’t escape the past, but they so frantically chase the present that they drive themselves into the echoing dark. The wind of the present sweeps through London, consequently through all the world. Yet still, it is not an entirely unfriendly wind, or an empty darkness, “this twittering world” is still alive.

As the wind leaves London, so the poet leaves the present, physical world. He leaves the crowd, leaves the light, and descends from Limbo to the world that isn’t even a world—one might even say hell—the place of no light, no substance, no senses, no company, no spirit, not even an imagination—truly hell for the poet. The hell is not like Dante’s, not one of an excess of sensitivity, but an absence of all things. By an absolute stillness “while the world moves / in appetency, on its metalled ways / of time past and time future.”

But while the poet descends to the depths, where is “the twittering world”? It continues on, by custom and the natural order, where “time and the bell have buried the day.” This nightfall of sunfall will not follow the poet into the Stygian depths. The sunflower does not worship the ground, and the clematis clings only to the tallest trees. Yew, the ever-faithful wood, even it refuses to follow. Yet one thing of the natural world remains….the light still remains.

Sir Walter Scott

For your amusement, we present two short passages from Sir Walter Scott. This first excerpt is from Ivanhoe.

"Wert thou not in presence yester-even," said De Bracy, "when we heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung by the Minstrel?—He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady, that they would not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides' families."

"I have heard the story," said Fitzurse, "though either the Prior or thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances."

The second excerpt is from The Talisman, and is a footnote appended to an Islamic hymn. HT to Kristen for suggesting the passage.

The worthy and learned clergyman by whom this species of hymn has been translated desires, that, for fear of misconception, we should warn the reader to recollect that it is composed by a heathen, to whom the real causes of moral and physical evil are unknown, and who views their predominance in the system of the universe as all must view that appalling fact who have not the benefit of the Christian revelation. On our own part, we beg to add, that we understand the style of the translator is more paraphrastic than can be approved by those who are acquainted with the singularly curious original. The translator seems to have despaired of rendering into English verse the flights of Oriental poetry; and, possibly, like many learned and ingenious men, finding it impossible to discover the sense of the original, he may have tacitly substituted his own.

Burnt Norton, Section III, and IV

Analysis to follow, by the Grace of God.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.



IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?

Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

The Seven Mechanical Arts

Hugh of St. Victor explains the Seven Mechanical Arts in his book, Didascalion: Concerning the Art of Reading. Basically, the Didascalion is the How to Read a Book of the twelfth century. In it, Hugh provides instruction for the students entering the school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris. The first half of the work covers the twenty-one arts, how to study them, and what to read concerning them. The second half of the work deals with Scripture and other sacred writings. Among the twenty-one arts, Hugh includes the Seven Mechanical Arts: fabric making, armament, commerce, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and theatrics.

Fabric making is all kinds of weaving, braiding, sewing, twisting, etc. with materials of wool, flax, hemp, jute, hide, etc. to make clothes, sails, coverings, sacks, etc. (This is the short summary; Hugh’s list is quite extensive.)

Armament originally meant weapons, but through a lengthy etymology, Hugh shows that this science applies to the making of all tools or instruments. Thus, armament has two divisions: constructional and craftly. Constructional armament includes building houses and walls. Craftly armament includes everything that is made in the forge or foundry.

Next up is commerce. It’s just what you think it is: all buying and selling of goods both foreign and domestic.

Moving on to agriculture, we find four types of land: arable, used for sowing; plantation, used for trees and vineyards; pastoral, used for sheep and cattle; and floral, used for gardens and roses.

All hunting is divided into three parts: gaming, fowling, and fishing. Hugh also includes all preparation of food by cooking. He notes that there are two kinds of food: bread and side dishes (everything else).

The two studies of medicine are occasions and operations. Occasions are the six reasons for good or bad health: air, motion and quiet, emptiness and satiety, food and drink, sleep and wakefulness, and reactions of the soul. All operations are interior (medicine) or exterior (surgery).

Finally, Hugh comes to theatrics. Theatrics contains all types of public entertainment, including sports.

The Seven Mechanical Arts are so-called because they contain all things produced by human artifice. Hugh sees these arts as lesser than the Seven Liberal Arts because the Liberal Arts require the use of the mind, whereas the Mechanical Arts require the use of the body. For Hugh, the body is inherently inferior to the mind, and the great goal in life is to move beyond the body (he does lean towards Gnosticism). Hugh recommends the study of the Mechanical Arts, but prefers the Liberal Arts, since he believes that they renew the image of God in man.

Work Cited

Hugh of St. Victor. The Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts. Translated by Jerome Taylor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.