I have just returned from spending a month-and-a-half at St. Anthony's Monastery in Florence, Arizona; I had intended to post something explaining what was up, but that was one of the many things that didn't get done before I left home. So now that I have lost the few readers that had persisted through these mad, muddy meanderings, I will continue the futile exercise of writing posts for a few weeks, until I leave home for good to wander the face of the Earth in search of my spiritual home.
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That in the heart of Man which gives light, that knowledge of meaning and purpose which is as the voice of God, continually prodding and nudging one toward Truth, giving no rest to any but those who have willfully blinded themselves out of hatred for light, this is the mystical Sun which lights the landscape of our lives, unspoken and unspeakable. Because it transcends all rational categories, it is expressed by way of paradox; the incongruity between two material explanations of the same truth provides the binocular vision by which it may dimly be seen. When, by Faith, the two halves of the inexpressible truth are accepted in entirety, this divine sun rises in the space between, shedding the spiritual illumination which is beyond the reach of reason; the rationalist who thinks he eliminates paradox by intellectually forcing a juncture between the truths that are accessible to him has really only succeeded in manufacturing a half-truth out of the two halves of the whole.
11 comments:
please keep writing..your posts on time and eternity have been really illuminating.
Maxim,
I just wanted to stop by and tell you that we just finished The Hobbit and it got easier after Bilbo found Smaug. I think Bard was my favorite character. And it was always nice when Gandalph was present. I think the hard parts were when he was describing the terrain. I usually need a picture when someone is describing locations. I know some people prefer verbal maps, but they confuse me. It was the same with Fellowship of the Ring which I got through about half of when the first movie came out. I really liked Tom Bombadil though.
All in all it was a nice bonding experience with the kids. Next we're going to read Eragon, for better or worse. I'm the only one who hasn't read it yet and I'm curious, plus the kids want to hear it again.
Hello, Andrea Elizabeth; glad to hear you made it through "The Hobbit". It's a nice, folksy kind of story, but it's "The Lord of the Rings" which holds my allegiance. It's hard to say what kind of things make a book meaningful to some, and yet have no appeal to others. My interest in it has changed alot over the years since I first read it in Junior High school; some of the passages that were the dullest then are my favorites now, and yes, those are primarily descriptive passages. I have known others who did what you did, i.e., read a few chapters and say "How boring!", but I've never been able to understand it; the opening chapters are such good fun! I wish Tolkien had written a book that took place entirely inside the borders of The Shire. I understand C.S. Lewis talked Tolkien into deleting large sections of "Hobbit-talk" from the later portions of the book; I've always been sorry about that.
I think, for those who are really into Tolkien, it's atmosphere rather than action which attracts. Of course, there are enthusiasts of the SciFi/Fantasy genre, but there are better people than Tolkien to go to for that kind of stimulation; if that's your interest, there's just too much inert material between the battle scenes in Tolkien (fortunately, they were able to cut most of that out in the movies, as well as make other improvements, such as transforming most supporting and minor characters into entertaining morons).
The key, I think, to reading LOR is to read slowly; I don't mean moving your lips or anything like that, but just giving time for Tolkien's exquisite atmosphere to penetrate the hard shell of our modern, high-speed, frazzled psyche. Tolkien really is good at describing natural things; if you're reading fast, you'll probably just say "Yeah, yeah, get on with it", but if you allow yourself to sink into some of these passages (correspondingly allowing them to sink into you) it will change the way you look at Nature. The place where one of the Hobbits is trying to describe what it was like to look into Treebeard's eyes makes me believe I understand what it's like to be a tree. To steal a phrase from the books, in Tolkien's world everything is more alive than it is to the stunted perceptions of "normal" people.
I distinguish between boring and slow. I do like the LOTR story but have found the verbal telling a little slow. I posted a link on my vox blog from Frederica's site about movies, including lotr, that many, but of course not all, thought were better than the books. Many think these stories needed some tightening and appreciated the group effort from actors and creators, that they add another dimension to the stories. Possibly some of my frustration with books is that they represent an isolated pov. I can argue with myself and say that no man is an island because he represents untold countless influences that contributed to his world view. He has creative control over these influences though. But being Catholic, maybe Tolkein represents a more orthodox conciliar pov. But I think a director doesn't have as much totally control over the creations of the others in a movie. But I've heard Hitchcock was extremely controlling of every mannerism, etc.
And movies add a much more visual component, which can be seen as more efficient than a books (a picture's worth...). This can raise many questions. Are we stifling our imaginations by having scenes spoon fed us? Is our language as a people suffering from disuse and how important is that as pictures take over more and more of our input? Is there justifiable individual differences between verbal and visual learners? Are visual learners suffering from attention deficit syndrome? Is the epidemic of ADS a result of a less literate society?
People complain now of the wordiness of Dickens et al but they did not have tv or as many convenient things to do in their society.
And there's the issue of motherhood. Multitasking had the most profound effect on my reading habits. I've read journals from when I was a young adult and I mourn at the loss of my ability to focus for long periods in a relaxed, undestracted way. Stress and being under attack, and being lied to can also make one less likely to trust a single author enough to slow down and let their words penetrate deeply and uninhibitedly into ones innermost soul.
And then there's video games which offer much quicker gratification, and they promote a defensive, combative posture. I think there's competing philosophies over whether this can promote release in one who already has a bunch of stress built up inside them or if it actually injects stress into their being. I think I know which side of that you and our Ochlophobist take on that.
Btw, I'm not a sci-fi reader though one of my sons is. Eragon is a dragon fantasy book written by a 15yo homeschooler that became so popular they made a movie out of it which dissapointed all the readers who felt it an extreme violation. I read the prologue and it seems to probably move like a movie and doesn't dwell in one spot as long as Tolkein does, but I'll reserve judgement.
All to say that I think I do have trouble dwelling in one spot. If you say Tolkein's spot will make me a more literate Orthodox Agrarian, I will try LOTR again because I recognize a quality to yours and our Och's attention span and depth that I would like to grow towards.
And I wanted to mention that I used to comfort myself with more romantic classical literature, but am developing more and more of a philosophical objection to it and I haven't been able to trust it enough to let it sink into my soul uninhibited for a while now. You and Och are better at describing a less "dramatic", dispassionate state of mind.
Oh and there's the issue of people drawn more to sciences than literature. Is that a dialectic opposition or is there room for seeing them as co-habitable distinctions? I'm having a liberal arts vs science debate in my head right now that hasn't been won. I have been pretty 50/50 in my career, scoring equally in both at school though previously I felt that science was the day job and art for evening and weekends. Though I'm enjoying immensely the blogs of those who chose art as a day job. This is important for me as my son goes to University of Dallas and tries to narrow down a major. We're a little scared of a Lib Arts degree and so he's leaning towards math which they also offer. Even if he chooses the latter, he will absorb some of the former in their core curriculum which all must take the first year. If he goes toward liberal arts it will be sort of a leap of faith, abandoning trusted sight for our family, who have traditionally been engineers on both sides.
And I do think, "yeah get on with it" a lot, and sometimes I think there is much ado about nothing, but I'm probably missing out on depth too. Sorry if I've transgressed into the former with this unusually long for me comment.
Your Treebeard eye-contact is very compelling.
St. Anthony's? Cool! I love Fr. Manas and Fr. Philotheo (they hang out in the back 40). I wish I had more time to spend there, its only a bit over an hour from my house.
Any future posts on your experiences there?
Dear Andrea Elizabeth:
I think in the 19th century many Authors were a little too prolix; they were paid by the word back then, which obviously doesn't encourage tightening. Now we have come to the opposite extreme, with publishers prone to reject anything that doesn't move at the pace of a car chase. I think the pace of a story must suit the story; like a piece of music, one speed does not fit all. There are probably many who find all stories of a slow tempo boring; perhaps they have the same deadening of perception we find in those raised on Thrash/Heavy Metal music.
Unquestionably, the visual affects us differently than the written; I believe the visual to be more dangerous. Images have the capacity to bypass the mind, and act directly on the emotions in a way that words themselves do not; a picture may be worth a thousand words in some ways, but words can do something a picture never can, which is to say precisely what the picture means. Modern people aren't into meaning, so they prefer pictures, and so they are the prey of propagandists and pornographers of all kinds, who are delighted whenever they find the gatekeepers of the soul asleep.
I do think TV and video games are one of the many factors involved in the ADHD and related phenomena; another would be permissive parenting. Being under authority helps a child settle; a child is happier in this condition than running willy-nilly after his own disordered impulses. Modern parenting magazines and books offer nothing but advice on how to bind your child hand and foot and deliver him into the hands of demons, and the "christian" ones aren't any better.
My sister-in-law used to do the majority of her reading while breast-feeding, but she may be exceptional; my sister says she can't do it.
We should be on guard; we might in a way miss the casual acceptance and dalliance of youth, but experience shows us the folly of it. In other words, we have lost our innocence. I first experienced LOR when in that innocence; I have in other places written of my doubts over whether all of the effects were good. Vigilance and just taking the time to absorb something aren't contradictory though, you can stand in one spot, as it were, and thoroughly taste the quality of an experience while still being able to analyze what kind of thing it is. I think it is the "standing still" that is the key, though I am embarrassed to be compared to Owen!
More later (I hope!).
Maxim,
What you are sharing about pacing and visual effects is very interesting to ponder. Perhaps icons bypass the mind and give proper meaning, which is why they are so stylized, and why we need to be more careful about what we let ourselves view. The opportunists you speak of use pictures to implant a twisted meaning. I'm not totally clear how pictoral meaning is different from verbal meaning. I've heard an ambivalent explanation that written words let you imagine something for yourself. Middle Earth probably looks different to you than someone else and that is why movies can disappoint. I don't think I've heard a Church Father define a hierarchy of icons over the Scriptures or vice versa, if the icon is true to the meaning of the Scripture. But I think they do affect us differently. I'm pretty sure the importance of having both is stressed. Maybe this is where pacing comes in. Reading helps our mind slow down, hopefully to the proper speed, not too slow. And this helps us train our attention muscle which helps us pray undestractedly before icons, though imageless prayer is also sought.
I also agree that we have lost our innocence. I think this has occurred in a communal way such that even newborns are affected by it. Even though I've shielded my kids from a lot of things, there seems to be a different awareness and reaction to the things that were meaningful to me when I was a small child, like The Elephant's Child read by Sterling Holloway (Winnie the Pooh's voice) and Andy Williams' Christmas Album. But maybe I haven't protected them enough. I think it's a bit of both.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
Interesting you should say that, strangely, that's not how it appears to me; in the beginning, I had a lot more of a definite focus, and more time and energy to devote to it. Now postings are pretty arbitrary, and few and far between. It's nice to know I still get viewers now and then, though, apart from the occasional ad that pops up.
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Brim over I agree but I think the collection should prepare more info then it has.
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