Seeming Contradictions

Alright I know Mary loved The Abolition of Man (she does so love to talk about the education system), but I have to admit I really struggled through it.  I think this is a product of being raised by philosophers – as soon as I pick up a philosophical text my brain shuts down.  Or perhaps that’s just me being a typical 20-something blaming all of her problems on her parents.  Anyways.  I did like the book, I promise.  Lewis always has interesting things to say.  I just like it when he says them more… fantastically.  So this is my initial reaction to the text: somewhat dull for me, but filled with vital insights for any willing to brave the 80-some pages. 

All that being said, let’s talk about my favorite line in the book. 

“Either we are rational spirit obliged forever to obey the absolute values of the Tao, or we are to be needed out and cut into new shapes . . . by ‘natural’ impulses.”

Okay, I admit it.  The real reason I liked this part so much is because just before Lewis mentions King Lear to introduce the topic.  I can’t help it, I’m a sucker for literary allusions (#englishmajorproblems).  But what kept me interested is the weird phenomenon I thought of this morning.  Lewis here proposes an either/or stance between the natural and supernatural, at least seemingly.  Either we are “rational spirit” and or we are bound by “’natural’ impulses.”  The conclusion of the book being, of course, that we are bound by our spirit to a set of absolutes (which, if you follow the line of thought to its natural conclusion, implies supernatural realities). 

However, in The Screwtape Letters, Lewis makes a point of saying that as humans, we are “amphibians,” that is, “half-spirit, half-animal.”  In this sense, the human person cannot be an either/or creature, for we are, by creation, a hybrid being (and if you want to get philosophical about it, we’re hylomorphic beings).  Our natural impulses, as Lewis phrases it, matter.  Our souls and our bodies are united and ignoring one side of our being – natural or supernatural – will hurt us all over (usually.  Saints get it away with it sometimes, but only miraculously). 

So for the better part of the afternoon I wondered how to solve this seeming contradiction between our two texts.  Do we choose between the natural and the supernatural, or do we embrace both fully? 

I think – and this is so typical of Christianity – that it is actually both, seemingly paradoxically.  We must first accept ourselves as hylomorphic beings.  I must eat food.  But how do I approach eating that food?  Is it simply a necessary task determined by my instincts and cravings?  Hopefully not.  I prepare my food, say a prayer of thanksgiving, and eat it with gratitude, often in the company of family and friends.  In this way I have chosen to be, not merely a being controlled by my natural impulses, but a rational spirit who acknowledges her state as a hylomorphic being. 

Our body posture matters when we pray.  But what is even more important is that we are praying.  And I think this is precisely the point C.S. Lewis is making in both Abolition of Man and Screwtape Letters; that we must know ourselves to be “half-spirit, half-animal” and then make the rational choice to order the natural part of our beings to our supernatural halves and, ultimately, to the absolute values of the Tao.

Intertextuality, guys.  Did I mention I'm an English major?        

Lewis and the Done Manifesto

If you haven't read The Abolition of Man just do it. Really, do. It's one of those books which is so short it's almost embarrassing not to have read, and is constantly applicable in discourse. But anyway. Lewis plugs aside, this book is full of thoughtful cogitations (is that redundant? probably) and excellent examples. This time around, one of the most interesting ideas for me was Lewis's thoughts on the mentality of debunking, and in particular a few images which he used to outline this discussion.

No doubt the world in which we live is full of just such debunkers as “Gaius and Titus”. Men and women who mistake harsh criticism for wisdom and intellect. This is a product, of course, of the fact that it is so easy to dismiss things and incredibly difficult to create them. Amateurs and young people especially seem to be guilty of this (though I may simply notice them more because they are my peers). Sure things are imperfect, and indeed some things ought to be heartily dismissed, but if we live in a world where the only thing people know how to do is tear down imperfect things nothing would stand on the face of this earth. I believe that.

It has honestly been a revelation to me over the past few years of my life that there are actually human hands and minds behind the remarkable complexity of the my car, my doctors office, the laptop I'm typing this on and nearly everything around me. And further I have a hand and mind and heart such that I could create these things too. This is why I love knitting and crafting so much, I still marvel at the fact that I could make something and use it. The bowl in my cupboard doesn't have to come from the store shelves, in can also come from the spinning clay in my hands. The remarkable words I read from the books on my shelves didn't land on the page in perfection, they were crafted there, and I can craft them too.

There's a fascinating movement of sorts that I came across online a few years ago which often springs to mind. It is called The Cult of Done Manifesto (http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html) and it deals with this idea of creating things and getting them done rather than waffling in the editing stage indefinitely. One of my favorite points, number 9 on the manifesto says “People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.” Now it's a decidedly questionable idea, particularly the second half which could be quite dangerous were in not being used primarily by a group of people for whom “doing something” really means making art. (Not that art isn't an earth-shaking endeavor, but it is less likely to result in bloodshed and massive inequality than many other pursuits.) However the image of that first part is quite important. “People without dirty hands are wrong.” If you're not willing to step into the fray and try to build something with me, if your intention is not to improve but simply to tear down, I do not want to hear what you have to say. It is those who are out there doing: the makers, the builders, the writers, architects, educators, researchers, chefs, these are the people whose voices I want to hear. It is Lewis's poet I want to see crafting our language, and not the theorist.

Which brings me around, at last, to the quotation from Abolition which resonated most with me. (And it actually is one of the ones I posted from last Saturday! Go me!) Lewis writes,

“A theorist about language may approach his language, as it were from outside, regarding its genius as a thing that has no claim on him and advocating wholesale alterations of its idiom and spelling in the interests of commercial convenience or scientific accuracy. That is one thing. A great poet, who has 'loved, and been well nurtured in, his mother tongue', may also make great alterations in it, but his changes of the language are made in the spirit of the language itself: he works from within. The language which suffers, also inspires the changes."

This example, for me, was perfect. An appreciation of tradition, of what has come before, does not mean that you wish it to remain unchanged. The choice is not between stasis and destruction, accepting or rejecting completely. The one who cherishes tradition must build upon the history they are given and grow that tradition. To prune a tree so that it can grow is a world away from chopping it down and planting a sapling by its upturned roots. It's true in science, it's true in politics, it's true in each discipline. A chemist rooted in the knowledge garnered before her equips herself to make important new discoveries. Likewise, a leader who loves his country will serve it far better than a dictator who does not. Just as the branches of an old tree grow upward, toward the sun. Keep pruning, keep reaching, keep growing in the light of the sun.

TL:DR Get your hands dirty. Go make something.

This Is Not A Post (Feat: Apologies, Quotes, and Other Stories)

It's official. Lizzy is better at my blog than I am. A full 24 hours post-deadline I am only halfway through The Abolition of Man. Given that this is an 80 page text, that's basically inexcusable. However, just 40 pages in and Lewis as already entered into innumerable complex topics and ideas and woven them together quite rapidly. I can't wait to read the next 40 pages!

I'm not really interested in short-changing this text, so my apologies, but there will be no post from me this week. Were this a class, I would have taken a quotation from the first half and whipped something up for you. Perhaps were there any readers to speak of, I may still have done this. But, fortunately, neither of these things is the case. (Fortunately?) (If you are actually reading this, my sincerest apologies. Assuming you're a faceless abyss is currently much better for my writing). Anyway, the beauty of this project is that I really get to spend time with a text and think about it and not immediately apply it to class materials.

For instance, this text served as part of the foundation for much of my Ethics class two years ago. Between the C.S. Lewis (Abolition and The Four Loves) and the Pride and Prejudice I managed to survive the "proper" philosophers (Aristotle, Aquinas, etc.) quite well. Now, however, this text is not the foundation for Ethical thinking. Nor is it the basis of my term paper or the answer to a short essay question. This summer is the object of my contemplation, and I hope to give it that due regard and requisite time here. Will the fruits be greater? I'm not going to short-change my education by making that assertion, but based on my reading thus far, I do know that there is more to learn from Lewis in this markedly short and famously complex text. So wish me luck! You'll see my thoughts on the text itself here soon.

By way of a teaser, here are a few of the quotations from the text that have caught my eye thus far:

"A theorist about language may approach his language, as it were from outside, regarding its genius as a thing that has no claim on him and advocating wholesale alterations of its idiom and spelling in the interests of commercial convenience or scientific accuracy. That is one thing. A great poet, who has 'loved, and been well nurtured in, his mother tongue', may also make great alterations in it, but his changes of the language are made in the spirit of the language itself: he works from within. The language which suffers, also inspires the changes."

"From within the Tao itself comes the only authority to modify the Tao."

"By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head."

"It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal."

"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings to be fruitful."

Until next time!
Mary

Friends, Fathers, and Joy

I’m afraid I have not read any Abolition of Man this week.  I have entirely failed.  I don’t think Mary made it much farther, but blame me!  I stole her away from her hometown to come visit me J  I felt bad leaving a week behind, though, so I thought I would just share something small with you.  I have been thinking a lot about the Screwtape Letters this past week and one particular passage seems to keep cropping up in my mind:

“You will see [Joy] among friends united on the eve of a holiday.”

Such a short statement for something so important and complex as the concept of Joy!  And yet, with my birthday this past week, with seeing Mary again this weekend and having all of my friends together, and just this evening as my family celebrated Father’s Day for both my own dad and my brother whose first daughter will be born this July, I have found that Screwtape managed to summarize the concept surprisingly well. 

It is difficult to describe the language of the heart and it seems so often that Joy can only be described in such a language.  But as I sat in my living room today surrounded by six people who love each other despite all of our hardships and dysfunctions, I swear I could almost feel that “acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience” that we glimpse in these small celebrations and reunions, in laughter and music and dance.  This will be the experience of entering heaven – like the moment when you see a friend and only then realize just how much you missed him.  Like coming together with your family on the eve of a holiday.

How can the devil break through where there is Joy?  Perhaps that is why Screwtape gives it only one line in his letter.  There is nothing a devil can say to tempt us away.  God is Joy in the same way that He is Love.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with Joy, to speak with it, and laugh in it, we come closer to Our Father.  So when you hand your present to your dad on Father’s Day, play the piano with him no matter how terribly, and listen to his puns, listen as your heart speaks the language it knows.  Allow yourself to be caught up in the Love and Joy of the present moment and you will be caught up in the constant outpouring of Love of the Most Holy Trinity.  This is how the Son loves the Father: not by suffering alone, but with great Joy.  May your hearts be filled with such Joy on this wonderful solemnity.      

Happy Father’s Day.      

On Beauty, Music, and Noise

Sorry my post is a little late this weekend!  And probably a little shorter as well.  As much as I have been loving reading the last letters of Screwtape, I was pulled away from book, computer, and the like by a family wedding this weekend in Wisconsin (yay weddings!).  But without further ado, let’s get started on some thoughts from Letter 22:

“Music and silence – how I detest them both!  How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell. . . all has been occupied by noise.”

Let’s hypothetically say it’s Monday (I might be dreading tomorrow a little bit).  I work at an office all morning, I try to amuse a screaming four month old all afternoon.  Then I attend my four hour lecture class on American Authors.  By the end of the day, I’m exhausted and about 1000% done with people and with generally keeping my eyes open.  I climb into the car and turn up the radio, roll down the windows and sing my own made up lyrics – I never can get the lyrics right – to whatever song is popular on the radio today.  I want the song to fill me up, so that I don’t have to listen to all the built up worries of the day in my exhausted brain. 

It is difficult, in our over-worked proletariat society, to determine “music” from “noise.”  When we hear birds sing, we say it sounds like music.  When we blast the radio at the end of the day, this is technically “music,” too, although we don’t use the word in the same sense at all.  So what is the difference?  And how do we find music that brings us closer to Heaven, helping us to understand the rhythms of silence, rather than trying to shout it all down?  HINT: the answer is not to listen exclusively to your Christian radio station. 

So what is it that makes music so different from noise, and so powerful?  Well, lucky for us, C.S. Lewis had a friend and his name was J.R.R. Tolkien (Mary is laughing at me because I managed to pull in Tolkien already and it’s only the second week).  In the mythology behind The Lord of the Rings, however, music is the language of creation.  God (Iluvatar) and the angels (the ainur) literally sing the world into being.  I bring this up because I had the advantage of reading Mary’s post this week before writing my own and she brought up a very important point; that is, Beauty.  And I think this is the main distinction between Music and merely Noise.  If you approach the art of song with heart yearning to understand who Beauty is and if you hear music that helps you to understand a Beauty that is ever ancient, and ever new, you have found Music. 

It is important for Christians to remember, though, that God is infinite and can be found, therefore, in infinite ways and places.  This is why I mention the Christian radio station before.  I have run across a number of people in my small Catholic bubble world that seem to be under the impression that they must listen to “Christian” radio or “oldies” in order to find any “good” music.  Don’t go near the stuff of popular culture – it will corrupt you to the world.  While I agree that you probably don’t want to set your morally uninformed 9-year-old down to jam out to Blurred Lines, it is good to reach out beyond our little bubble and see how everyone is reaching out, somehow, for the Beauty we know is in God. 

One of my favorite artists, Paul Simon, once said in an interview that he believed in God because he knew that his songs did not come entirely from him.  There was something more to his writing that he simply couldn’t explain.  I think that just maybe he found himself speaking the language of creation and he had no idea what it meant to hear, if only for a moment, the song of angels.  This does not mean that all of Paul Simon’s songs are divinely inspired or theologically sound, but it does mean that he has seen something Beautiful and is trying to express it to the world.  And that’s worth listening to. 

But that also doesn’t mean that if I get in the car at the end of my long Monday, blasting Paul Simon will solve my proletarian problems.  As Screwtape makes so painfully obvious, even the some great spiritual goods are corrupted by temptation.  It is possible for us to turn music into noise by how we use, or abuse, it.  If I am using music to avoid my life, it will not sound like music to me at all.  If I am using music to understand my life and my relationship to the divine, then I will find it everywhere, including the popular Sara Bareilles song on the radio (actually, though, have you listened to I Choose You?  So cute!) 

That brings us to a rather shoddy conclusion on my ramblings for the day.  But tomorrow night, just for you readers, I will try to listen to that Sara Bareilles song on the radio instead of using it to shout down fresh memories of family dramas and a certain adorable four month old spitting up on my shirt.  And maybe it will help me remember why I love my jobs and my education and how grateful I am that I am an overworked American only sometimes.  Every week has a Sunday.  And so we carry on in the every-constant, ever-changing rhythm that makes up the beauty of our lives.             

Screwtape Part II: Reflections on Rhythm

[Spoiler Alert]

The Patient chooses Heaven! Screwtape devours Wormwood for all eternity! Yay! Or Boo! Or both?

Well, now that we've got all of those juicy little spoilers out of the way, I'm not actually going to talk about the end of the book, tender a morsel as it is. From this week's reading, a concept from the 25^th letter caught my attention quite thoroughly: Screwtape's idea of rhythm. He says, “He [The Enemy] has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before.” Screwtape, of course, would like to pervert the natural satisfaction with these rhythms of life with a constant pursuit of novelty. Novelty is that which is enjoyed almost entirely for the sake of its newness. Something which will turn out of fashion just as quickly as it came into fashion. These ever-shifting trends and vogues are, as Screwtape himself notes, always expensive and never satisfactory. Take the example of the fashion industry. In the first place, the most trendy fashion statements always look the most outlandish because their goal is not purely aesthetic, but also reaching for novelty. Still, even when a new fashion has been popularly established, it is sure to look outmoded in just a few years. So it is with any art, literature, philosophy, religion or anything else if the goal is always change and never growth or continuity.

St. Augustine spoke of God as that “Beauty ever ancient, [and] ever new” This speaks to the heart of Screwtape's claims about “the Enemy” which is to say that He desires both necessary change and a love of constancy. It may be noted, in line with Augustine's thoughts, that the Enemy is that which is desired and and perhaps pursued in man's joy at the changing seasons or the celebration of holidays. These things reflect both the freshness constant legacy of the Lord Himself. He is a beauty which does not grow old, a love which does not tire. In much of art there is a desire to constantly create something “new”. A story which has been told in a different way before is at best trite and at worst plagiarism. Certain branches of modern art and literature are so inundated with this need for novelty that they have in fact lost all sense of beauty, and indeed have forfeited their ability to evoke a desired emotion or idea or even question into the mind of any audience member. They have become so novel as to be unrecognizable. Meanwhile it is some of the greatest works of art and literature which still speak deeply to the world today, were not original in the common sense. Shakespeare's plays might well be considered plagiarized today. Michelangelo's stunning Pieta was a new way of looking at that well-known sculptural figure. And so on. What these great masters knew in their undertakings was that their goal was not in fact novelty, it was beauty. Certainly they desired to create vision which had not precisely been seen before, to share this unique view of the world through their eyes. But the proper object of their contemplation and creation was a very human truth and beauty which moved the heart as softly as the first chill of Autumn on the late Summer air. These masters, like St. Augustine himself, were enamored of Beauty.

Of course not all art must be beautiful in the strictly pastoral sense of the term. Lewis's example evokes this perfectly. There is a time for winter snowfall, a time for Lenten fasting, and a time for Christmas pudding. Each season is treasured in its own time, and equally so the development of each era's particular artistry casts its own light on the world. The trick is to enter into the rhythm rather than to try to subvert it through pure novelty. If the artists of the Renaissance, for instance, had not learned from their predecessors, the world would not have seen the remarkable realism they were able to bring to the table. It is growth, not blind change which brings the human race ever closer and closer to beauty and to truth. We may cast away what is feeble and flawed, but must cultivate that which is strong is we wish for any created work to truly engage with the hearts of men and women, hearts which were formed aching and seeking for that Ancient Beauty made ever New.