Wednesday: worse than usual ramble
Psychobabble is Anu Garg's word for today, and it suits, doesn't it, starting with my rising before two o'clock for the sacrifice, lulled by the assuredness of immediately going back to sleep but, mind wandering against my will, rising permanently still before two dark for a cuppa: extra strength black adding one teaspoon of powdered milk and, reaching into the cabinet above my coffee maker, an envelope of something mist powdered hot chocolate (idk, maid mist?) mix stirred in for a hot mug of something immensely soothing to tongue and stomach.
Checking online what was/is bothering me, two unlikely things.
ONE. Some of us enjoy, even to some extent may depend on (although I personally do not except tangentially), the website TextWeek, a wide-ranging resource that includes, among much else, the lectionary texts (Propers) for the Sunday and a concomitant art image that might be used as a cover for the Sunday worship bulletin. Checking yesterday or Monday the Propers for my next turn in the pulpit 10/10 the third anniversary of Hurricane Michael, I saw the offered art image, with some reserve. It's from William Blake of
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
(Blake also has a superb "opposition poem" about the Lamb)
and much, much else, more, wealth of his gifted imagination, poetry, books, paintings, most relevantly including art for Proper 23B, from his book " Milton: a Poem, To Justify the Ways of God to Men", this image "To annihilate the self-hood of deceit & false forgiveness". As a retired parish priest, I cannot visualize any circumstance under which I would have used this startling picture as the cover for a Sunday worship bulletin; but there it is.
Among other things, the context brings to mind Carl Jung's thesis that the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ was (not to reconcile man to God, God dying to atone for human sin, but) to reconcile God to man, God dying to atone for God's unconscionable treatment of Job (which our lectionary will soon take us into), Job who metaphorically is us, yes, US.
It also brings to my mental surface this predawn Wednesday, my seminary theology professor's chuckling comment that in many ways our experience with the Divine suggests that "either God does not exist, or God hates us" (that I dare bring such mainline seminary cynicism into print is one reason for my removing my +Time blog link from my parish website/Facebook).
This version shows Blake's illustration in better detail,
the Hebrew content of the tablets.
TWO. My commitment, delayed but not forgotten, to comment on John Irving's novel "A Prayer for Owen Meany". What can I say? I've read competent literary comments on several of Irving's novels, including Owen Meany, so I could just borrow and slip by. But I'm going to say something of my own this morning and write myself a note to maybe write/say more another Time, later.
This comes both from thoughts about Owen and thoughts generated in starting prep for our adult Sunday School class next Sunday 9/26. For the only time in the three-year lectionary cycle, our OT reading is from Esther. I've been reading both Esther and, extensively, writings about Esther, and looking at Jewish art about Esther, notably the vivid work of Arthur Szyk, example:
And if you've read Esther, you will. with Jewish satisfaction at karma's justice and God's victory saving us from our enemies, recognize the evil Haman:
The Book of Esther, its ten-chapter story, explains the origins of the Jewish festival of Purim. In fact, there is scholarly exchange, including rabbis over the centuries, debating whether Esther is actual history (apparently no known history of Persia supports this view) or is, in fact Heilsgeschichte, a holy story that is actually an etiology constructed to explain Purim.
I mean, etiology is common in the Bible. Why do snakes, serpents, not have legs, but instead have to crawl on the ground, in the dust? for example; and why do women have to suffer such terrible pain in childbirth? and why do we men have to work for a living? It's all explained etiologically in Genesis chapter 3, for anyone intellectually capable of setting religious certainties aside for the moment, to contemplate us humans, tongue in cheek
Just so, reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany", I have to ask myself, postulating the unthinkable, and remembering that no manner of belief makes anything a fact, why we celebrate Christmas? how can we Christians justify having taken over the pagan winter festival Saturnalia? Well, that's easy, isn't it: read Matthew chapter one and Luke chapters one and two, our two totally different Nativity narratives, stories that never occurred to Saint Paul, or to whoever wrote the "Gospel according to Mark" or the "Gospel according to John". Could that be? Are the stories etiologies in some sense? (Well, maybe not Matthew, who is just proof-texting Old Testament messianic prophecy) IDK, I'm sitting here some twenty-one centuries later trying to make sense of life and faith.
In a prior parish, my office helper Margo was of Native American/Indian ancestry. And she used to tell me, because I loved hearing them, the ancient myths of her native people. Some of the stories were outright preposterously incredible: who could believe such tales?! If I challenged Margo on the veracity of such a wild one, that it couldn't possibly be "true", she would say, "well, it's true for us". Or sometimes even "We know it's just a story, but it's true for us, it's our story, and look! you Christians also have good stories!".
I think that sort of intelligence - - going to something I read and repeated here recently that sometimes we can hold irreconcilable views that are in tension with each other (in that case, spaceships coming to take us from this miserable life on Earth to paradise on Venus, even though we know that Venus is uninhabitable for humans) - - shows great maturity in human thinking. As I once read Bishop Spong saying that no matter what he may believe is historical fact, he loved hearing the stories and singing the hymns.
So Owen Meany then, eh? From within the story, there's every reason that Owen's parents' story of Owen's virgin birth could be true, within the story. In fact, Irving leaves it open. We Christians (and though disdaining the Church, Owen was a fiercely believing Christian) own and believe such a story ourselves; yet, just as the Church and community, even narrator John Wheelwright, though himself critical of Pastor Louis Merrill's "faith-doubt" (which to me shows in John Irving), doubted; if anyone came forward claiming such a thing today, we'd know it was nonsense. I mean, let's do a DNA test, eh?! But faith cherishes a story, science notwithstanding.
And Owen's conviction of his divinely appointed, messianic mission, which starts to seep out with his anger at the Church for scoffing at his parents, his humble origins and lowly social class, his eagerness to play the Baby Jesus role in the Christmas Pageant, and also to take the Christmas Carol role of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and there seeing his own tombstone circumstance and date of death, and his sure and certain knowledge of his destiny (to Johnny, "You don't understand") even though he wasn't sure of details or reasons Why, just What and When but as it turns out not Where - - and Owen's confidence that everything, including his voice, his size, the baseball, practicing "the shot", his treatment by the other kids in Sunday school class, everything about his life is happening for a reason, God's own salvific reason, all suddenly wrapped up by Irving in a neat package at the end - - saving little children from an evil one, all that is neither more nor less fantastic than anyone else's religious stories, including ours (again, people love to have a story to believe, have you read the Infancy Gospel of Thomas?). I'm still thinking of Margo's sacred myths. And why do we celebrate Purim? And why did we take over Saturnalia? - - because everybody loves a party and the early Christian elders could not stop even converted pagans from joyously celebrating the winter festival, so usurp it, co-opt it as now Christian!
Fantasy fiction at its perhaps most subtle (or blatantly outrageous! - - Christ has died, Christ is risen, Here Christ is again, why not!), "A Prayer for Owen Meany" is neither more nor any less credible than anybody else's incredible story. My favorite: disappearing into Narnia for a lifetime while, back home in England, Time stands still, waiting for me to return.
Is Owen's story credible? From within, it certainly is as credible as any fantasy fiction; and I thought maybe even Johnny Wheelwright, later, saved from falling down the stairs by Owen's hand and hearing Owen's voice, long years after Owen's death, may himself have come to have second thoughts, "faith-doubts" about Owen's virgin birth, especially in evidence of Owen's eternal life. Like our Bible stories, the Owen story is actually "to persuade the reader" (you, me), and even I believed (yes, in the story, Owen is/was the virgin-birth Christ); or saw myself being brought into the same "faith-doubt" as our Christian stories bring me (and leave me). And from without, the story is neither more nor less fantastical than any of our other fanciful stories.
I mean (again) has it occurred to you that Santa Claus was your Truth until the kid next door or your older sibling clued you in - - and that after that, your Truth became an even more unlikely story to take you through the rest of life as an adult and beyond? (Mark 9:24) If it hasn't occurred, let occurrence come, a bit of doubt may strengthen your faith.
RSF&PTL
TW+
Near distance: rain falling east of 7H, Wednesday morning sky 6:05 AM
++++++++++++++
http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/milton.a?descId=milton.a.illbk.15
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his prophetic works were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".[2] His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".[3] In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.[4] While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham,[5] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God"[6] or "human existence itself".[7]
Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncraticviews, he is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as "Pre-Romantic".[8] A committed Christian who was hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions.[9][10] Though later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amiable relationship with the political activist Thomas Paine; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg.[11] Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Michael Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary",[12] and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors".[13]
Title: To Annihilate the Self-hood of Deceit and False Forgiveness
Notes: Arts, Prints, and Photographs Division.
Date: 1804
Artist: Blake, William, 1757-1827
Building: New York Public Library
Object/Function: Print
City/Town: New York
State: NY
Country: United States
Scripture: Mark 10:17-31 (Gospel for Pr23B, 10 Oct 2021)
Lectionary links: BProp23
ALent01
Blake, William, 1757-1827. "To Annihilate the Self-hood of Deceit and False Forgiveness", from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55221 [retrieved September 22, 2021]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:To_annihilate_the_Self-hood_of_Deceit_and_Fals_Forgiveness_1804.jpg.
