Rob, Lie, Kill

I haven't done much reading lately, much to my chagrin, but when have I've ever been able to sate the reading bug? I am making a concentrated effort to change that though, and now that I'm no longer in school I really have no excuse for lazy reading habits. My most recent "conquest" is Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and while I'm proud to have completed such a significant (not to mention hefty!) piece of literature, I certainly can't boast about the 4+ months it took me to get through it. Hopefully I'll show a bit more concentration with the next few books I pick up...though I may not be able to proceed directly to another Russian novel as I had originally planned (it's a genre which I have neglected in the past, again to my regret).

Just one note on the quotes: somehow they all come from the very end of the book. I hope that's only incidental and not an indicator that I somehow didn't pay attention to the rest of the work. Though I'm inclined to doubt the latter since I read approximately the first half in the summer of 2006 and re-read the entire piece this time around, thus doubling up on 400 or so pages. Then again, perhaps a third reading is in order to grasp the full weight of Tolstoy's writing.

Regardless, without further ado, and in order of appearance, I give you quotations.

     "Understanding clearly for the first time that for every man and for himself nothing lay ahead but suffering, death and eternal oblivion, [Levin] decided that it was impossible to live that way, that he had either to explain his life so that it did not look like the wicked mockery of some devil, or shoot himself [...]
     'What would I be and how would I live my life, if I did not have those beliefs, did not know that one should live for God and not for one's needs? I would rob, lie, kill. Nothing of what constitutes the main joys of my life would exist for me.' And, making the greatest efforts of imagination, he was still unable to imagine the beastly being that he homself would be if he did not know what he lived for.
     'I sought answer to my question. But the answer to my question could not come from thought, which is incommensurable with the question. The answer was given by life itself, in my knowledge of what is good and what is bad. And I did not acquire that knowledge through anything, it was given to me as it is to everyone, givenbecause I could not take it from anywhere.
     'Where did I take it from? Was it through reason that I arrived at the necessity of loving my neighbor and not throttling him? I was told it as a child, and I joyfully believed it, because they told me what was in my soul. And who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law which demands that everyone who hinders the satisfaction of my desires should be throttled. That is the conclusion of reason. Reason could not discover love for the other, because it's unreasonable.'"
—Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Penguin Group: New York, 2000. pp 796-797.

     "'And don't all philosophical theories do the same thing, leading man by a way of thought that is strange and unnatural to him to the knowldege of what he has long known and known so certainly that without it he would not even be able to live?'"
—ibid. pg 798.

     "'It's the newspapers that all say the same thing,' said the prince. 'That's true. And it's so much the same that it's like frogs before a thunderstorm. You can't hear anything on account of them.'"
—ibid. pg 808.

Brilliance

“She got so excited when she was spouting this ahistorical countertextual nonsense, and I caught myself thinking, ‘What an idiot her teacher must be,’ and thinking about her teacher made me realize—the kind of excitement she was showing as she mindlessly spouted back the nonsense she learned in college, that's just the excitement some of my own students show. And it occurred to me that what we professors think of as a ‘brilliant student’ is nothing but a student who is enthusiastically converted to whatever idiotic ideas we've been teaching them. ”

~Orson Scott Card, Enchantment

Quotes are Posts, Too

“Your bid—for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity—will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man out of his merely verbal thinking or his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.”

~C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Philosophy—How I Love the Sophists

“Nothing is guaranteed, except that what is born will die, and that in life ruin cannot be avoided.”

~Critias

Just Because

"Some while back one night I dreamed that I was motoring along a country road with my inspirational Greek muse. She occupied the driver's seat while I occupied the passenger's place with a second, student's, wheel.

I could not help but notice that she was driving, serenely, with a clean white blindfold over her eyes, while her hands barely touched the steering wheel.

And as she drove she whispered notions, concepts, ideas, immense truths, fabulous lies, which I hastened to jot down.

A time finally came, however, when, curious, I reached over and nabbed the edge of her blindfold to peer underneath.

Her eyes, like the eyes of an ancient statue, were rounded pure white marbles. Sightless, they stared at the road ahead, which caused me, in panic, to seize my wheel and almost run us off the road."

~Ray Bradbury, Driving Blind

On Fiction

"Why do we read fiction anyway? Not to be impressed by somebody's dazzling language—or at least I hope that's not our reason. I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not 'true' because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself."

~Orson Scott Card

Love, balanced with a Sense of Perspective

"It is not good at all...to do everything for those you love and not give them a share in the doing. It's not kind. It's making too much of yourself..."

From At the Back of the North Wind
by George MacDonald

Return of the Quotes

"Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change." ~C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"All virtues are less formidable once the man is aware that he has them, but this is especially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble,' and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear." ~Ibid.

"Man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame." ~Ibid.

"...the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays... Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead." ~Ibid.

"Once [man] knew that some changes were for the better, and others for the worse, and others indifferent. We have largely removed this knowledge. For the descriptive adjective 'unchanged' we have substituted the emotional adjective 'stagnant.' We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain—not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." ~Ibid.

Pensées

Thou Great I AM,
Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being
with whom one day is as a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day,
A mighty God, who, amidst the lapse of worlds,
and revolutions of empires,
feels no variableness,
but is glorious in immortality.
May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives;
that, while all creatures are broken reeds,
empty cisterns,
fading flowers,
withering grass,
He is the Rock of Ages, the Fountain
of living waters.
Turn my heart from vanity,
from dissatisfactions,
from uncertainties of the present state,
to an eternal interest in Christ.
Let me remember that life is short and unforseen,
and is only an opportunity for usefulness;
Give me a holy avarice to redeem the time,
to awake at every call to charity and piety,
so that I may feed the hungry,
clothe the naked,
instruct the ignorant,
reclaim the vicious,
forgive the offender,
diffuse the gospel,
show neighbourly love to all.
Let me live a life of self-distrust,
dependence on thyself,
mortification,
crucifixion,
prayer.

~The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers

Morbid Introspection?

"...'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of
my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
II Corinthians 12:9 ESV

Quotes, quotes, quotes...

I think I'll make up for my utter lack of originality with some more quotations:

"Because we are creatures we must necessarily see and express the world poetically. All our knowledge is in some fashion metaphorical. Only God knows things immediately. For us, wound tight in our finitude, knowledge of the world must be mediated, that is, apportioned to us in the same way a toddler gets his mashed peas." ~Wilson & Jones, 181

"...the world is an enchanted place, and so when a scientist describes it for us as a great concourse of atoms banging blindly down the corridors of time, we should not commend his stark scientific realism. We should rather condemn the clunky poetry[...] Our choice is not between science and poetry, but rather between good poetry and bad poetry." ~Ibid. 182

And, along the same lines, here is Tolkien's view of the subject:
"Something really 'higher' is glimpsed in mythology [poetry]: Divinity, the right to power (as distinct from its posssession), the due of worship, in fact 'religion.' Andrew Lang said, and is by some still commended for saying that mythology and religion (in the strict sense of the word) are two distinct things that have become inextricably entangled..." ~On Fairy-stories, 25

Finally, on to some of the more mundane details of my life... I've started working at a vet clinic and find myself slightly overwhelmed by the sheer variety of tasks given to me. I do very basic things like laundry (which runs constantly) but also "restrain" animals during procedures and clean kennels, etc. The best (and most complicated) part is probably making and sterilizing surgery packets. And then there's the job of loading euthenized animals into garbage bags and taking them to a giant freezer- not the most glamorous job in the world, but also not as "icky" as I would have imagined. All-in-all, things have gone very well this week, and the people training me are so exceptionally patient :)

In other news, I have had time to catch up on a ton of reading...I LOVE summer! A Sayers mystery, James Joyce's Ulysses (which I have not yet started- it's rather daunting...), The Oxford History of the Crusades (I'm forcing myself to read it after seeing Hollywood's perversion of history in Kingdom of Heaven, Bulfinch's Mythology, and as many Chaim Potok books as I could find!

Fascinated with Sayers

Only on the eighteenth page of Dorothy Sayers' Whimsical Christian and I've already filled my notebook with three pages worth of quotes & notes. Honestly, it's a bit overwhelming, so I'm sure I'll have to re-read it over the summer. Anyway, here is an excellent example of Sayers' versatility as a writer:

Hynm Suitable for the Vigil of the Enlightenment

"The day that Nature gave is ending
The hand of Man turns on the light;
We praise thee, Progress, for defending
Our nerves against the dreadful night.

As o'er each continent and island
The switches spread synthetic day,
The noise of mirth is never silent,
Nor dies the stain of toil away.

We thank thee that thy speed incessant
Provides upon this whirling ball
No time to brood on things unpleasant--
No time, in fact, to think at all.

Secure amid the soothing riot
Of crank and sound track, plane and car,
We shall not be condemned to quiet,
Nor left alone with what we are.

By lavish and progressive measures
Our neighbor's wants are all relieved;
We are not called to share his pleasures
And in his grief we are not grieved.

Thy wingèd wheels o'erspan the oceans,
Machining out the Standard Man.
Our food, our learning, our emotions
Are processed for us in the can.

All bars of color, caste, and nation
Must yield to movies and the mike;
We need not seek communication,
For thou dost make us all alive.

So be it! Let not sleep nor slackness
Impede they Progress, Light sublime;
Nor ever let us glimpse the blackness
That yawns behind the gates of Time."

Ne quid Nimis

My goodness! It's the end of the quarter already-- I'm not sure I'll be able to endure a full 3 months without books... Then again, what's the summer for if not excessive "recreational" reading?

I've decided not to study for finals this quarter :) I'm just a little burnt out with studying at the moment.

"According to this conception dergrees of value are objectively present in the Universe. Everything except God has some natural superior; everything except unformed matter has some natural inferior. The goodness, happiness, and dignity of every being consists in obeying its natural superior and ruling its natural inferiors." ~C.S. Lewis

"The medievalist thinks of our entire existence as a dance, in which some bow and some curtsey, some play the music and some dance, some laugh in gladness and some try to flatter the ladies. The irony, the last being first and all that, is that when a man finds a lowly station in cheerful obedience, he acquires in this great dignity. He knows what he is supposed to do in the dance, and he is happy to do it. In the medieval world, a simple stable hand could be content with his station. Today a union member glares at mangement and calls it his moral duty." ~Wilson and Jones 167

Neglecting Nietzsche

More quotes...I finished Angels in the Architecture over the long weekend. Other than that and an insane sunburn (only on my back), the weekend was fairly uneventful. Hooray for finals! Wait- that means I've been blogging for a whole quarter now...cool!

"For some time now we have hyped the importance of having 'contemporary' and 'relevant' Christianity and have done so to the point where we have almost emptied the faith of its historic and orthodox content" (Jones & Wilson 97).

"Modernity has abandoned the household gods, not because we have rejected the idolatry as all Christians must, but because we have rejected the very idea of household [...] If our rejection of the old idols was Christian repentance, God would bless it, but what is actually happening is that we are sinking below the level of the ancient pagans" (Jones & Wilson 117).

"A rebellious city is not a place of peace, of Sabbath. It is in constant movement, unending work. It rejects the rhythms and seasons of God and imposes its own exhausting drone and sleepless flow of electricity and wheels. It is no place for silence. Silence is terrifying; it reveals our bitter sin. The rebellious demand constant background noise as a shield from God. It provides diversion from their souls..." (Jones & Wilson 135).

And, especially regarding my previous comments about Plato's Republic:
"The truth is that even a non-tyrannical king or president is a sign of our lack of self-control. The existence of civil authorities should always be a reminder that we are so immature as a people that we cannot live our lives peacefully on our own in submission to the divine commands. Every kingly, presidential, or prime-ministerial seal should bear the inscription 'They have not rejected thee; but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them' (I Sam. 8:7). There have been godly kings, kings with whom God has been pleased [...] yet the goal should be 'no king but Christ'" (Jones & Wilson 152).

Te Deum

Recently I've been revelling in the book Angels in the Architecture by Dougs Wilson and Jones. Last night as I was reading, just before falling asleep, I felt for the first time in months (literally) that I actually understood and delighted in those monotonous scribbles across the page. I have never stopped reading, but lately reading has been somewhat of self-inflicted disciplinary measure rather than a joy. These are some poignant quotes which awoke me from my intellectual slumber:

"Properly understood, the formal descriptions we give God are not boundaries for the divine essence; they are well-marked boundaries between creaturely knowledge and creaturely ignorance. When we heed them, it leads us to true knowledge which ends in worship." (Jones & Wilson 40)

"We do not know what it would be like to walk through a grove of ancient trees sacred to the holy and terrible gods, and then be converted to the worship of One holier, and stanger, and mightier than these. We reject the shining of the ancient and numinous gods [...] not because they are creatures, but because they remind us of the divine. This is not the holiness of Christianity, but rather the crass materialism of modernity..." (Jones & Wilson 44)

"We [moderns] have no room for the idea that ineffable wisdom governs us in the most inscrutable ways. We, trapped in our thicket of time and chance, imagine there is nothing above or outside it. Because we do not know, because we do not see, it must not be there to be known or seen." (Jones & Wilson)

"They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity..."

Watched "The Incredibles" for the first time last night and went to sleep contemplating this quote from Syndrome:

"Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super...no one will be."