The Big Enchilada

The first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox.  Easter. The Big Enchilada of Christian faith and observance.  Well, the big day approaches and, as usual at this time of year, I do my "Easter Duty"--though not what good UN-collapsed Catholics mean by that expression.  What I mean when I speak of Easter Duty is, well, just sitting down, perhaps with a glass of Chardonnay, and thinking about what The Resurrection of Jesus could possibly mean.


This is, of course, big time "cognitive dissonance."  I cannot make any rational sense out of a tale of miraculous rising from the dead.  The universe as I apprehend it with my reason and five senses does NOT make exceptions to its own rules.  I cannot, therefore, acknowledge miracles as real within the framework of what humans can explain.

But I also sense--who doesn't?--that the greatest portion of "reality" is probably completely inaccessible to human reason and could never be explained with human language.

I'm fascinated by the distinction made by Karen Armstrong (in The Case for God) between logos and mythos.  Armstrong asserts that these terms designate two different means of apprehending reality.  Logos refers to knowledge we acquire using our five senses and our reason.  This knowledge can be explained in human language and discussed logically.  Mythos, on the other hand, refers to "unknowing," to a kind of intuitive, ineffable, inexplicable ecstasy that somehow involves us in transcendental reality--reality that goes beyond rational understanding.  Further, Armstrong posits that logos and mythos are not incompatible but rather complementary ways of experiencing, simultaneously, both that which is and that which is not.

In other words, Armstrong would assert that the Resurrection story is both false and true.  It is false in a literal, rational sense:  people die and they do not rise from the dead.  Our senses do not provide us with ANY scientific, objective evidence that such miraculous events occur.  But the Resurrection is true  in a mythological and metaphorical sense.  Our religious experience and practice make us aware of this truth, but there is simply no way that human language can explain what we sense as a result of our participation in the liturgy and discipline of the Easter faith.  We cannot, in fact, really talk about the "mythological" truth.  The language that we use--the language used in the Gospels--is metaphorical and completely unscientific.  It "points" but what it points to is "silence."  Armstrong calls this truth "apophatic" (wordless, irrational--or, perhaps "beyond meaning").

I suppose none of this "makes sense" to those who are accustomed to relying exclusively on logos (what can be known scientifically and rationally).  But, as Armstrong points out, the "unknowing" of mythos--a transcendent state prized in all religions--is NOT the product of any INTELLECTUAL activity.  Rather, it occurs only within and as a result of ritual practice, discipline and commitment to a way of living.  One must empty oneself and indeed lose one's selfishness within this ritual structure.  Armstrong insists--and I agree strongly--that the RITUAL life is what genuine religion is about.

The sacraments for Christians; the ritual prayer and fasts for Muslims; the "Path" for Buddhists.  The "logical" explanations for all of this are, let's face it, nonsense.  When I go to church (it still happens), I never listen to the sermons.  What logical foolishness for a priest--or a religious establishment of any kind-- to attempt  to "define" (limit) God or tell me anything at all about Him.  God is not accessible to the logos.  But in the ritual and the ceremony, in the songs and the chants, in the "magic" of the Mass, the mythos can (and, I think does) speak--with no words.

Does this mean that, in order to "go beyond," we must somehow abandon our reason and our intelligence--deny the truths that we know logically?  Of course not.  That is the asinine conclusion of the fundamentalists who assert, ludicrously and dangerously, that what we know with our senses and our reason (logos) is NOT true and contrariwise, that the mythos of the Bible or the Koran IS objectively and scientifically and rationally provable using the logos faculty.  So, we wind up with the outrageous cognitive dissonance of such statements as:  humans did NOT evolve from more primitive life forms; Moses DID part the Red Sea;  Jesus WAS born from a virgin; God does NOT want women priests, etc., etc., etc.

And, of course, the biggie:  Jesus DID really and truly and objectively and demonstrably rise from the dead.

Nope.  Not scientific.  My logos says NO.  But my mythos says YES.  And, for the time being at least, I'm going to try to be faithful to both forms of knowing.  Therefore, perhaps it is best, at this juncture, to practice what most of the greatest religious leaders have urged their disciples to do when they, the disciples, reached the limits of their logical understanding:  shut up!

Cat Talking

When I was a kid, our family included both cats and dogs, sometimes simultaneously.  My favorite pet was Coco, a mongrel rat terrier who slept under the covers of anyone's bed (a whore, really) and whose incorrigible gluttony led to fatal kidney disease (she was especially fond of vanilla ice cream topped with peanut butter).

Sometime prior to Coco's demise, we nearly froze/asphyxiated Pizza, a male tabby who somehow found his way into a deep freeze in our basement.  We don't know how long he spent in the cooler, but when Grandma Kirkeby opened the freezer door in search of a frozen pie shell, Pizza burst out, shaking his paws and miauling in absolute fury at our unforgivable lèse majesté.

So, I've had experience as both a dog person and a cat person.

These days, though, I'm mostly hanging out with a feline--Sasha, the catatonic cat.  I've mentioned her several times before in this blog--a sign, perhaps, of my increasing fascination with creatures who seem, at least, to be able to perceive things existing only in the fourth dimension.  

Of course, such creatures--given their special insights--have no need for our hopelessly deficient human language.  They just "know" things by virtue of "being."  And, on the rare occasion that they have any need to communicate with three-dimensional types (for instance, when they want us to move our limbs into a position they find more comfortable), they have only to bite the offending arm or leg.  This almost always works quite nicely.

We humans, alas, must generally rely on language to communicate.  It follows, therefore, that both my sister and I spend a good deal of our time cat talking --i.e., talking either TO the cat or THROUGH the cat.

Let me explain these two important types of speech.

A.  Talking TO the cat.  Since we, unlike Kitty herself, cannot convey our wishes or feelings in non-verbal ways, we are sometimes obliged to speak directly to the Cat.  Two functions, in particular, are involved:  1) commands and 2) endearments.

Examples of commands:

• Here, Kitty.  Come and snuggle with Kenny!
• Kitty!  Get down from the counter! Now!
• Get back in here, Sasha!  Move it!  Bad Kitty!

Examples of endearments:

• Such a good Kitty!  Licky, licky.  Daddy loves the kitty, too.
• OK, you can lie on Kenny's belly, but let me move the clicker first. There.
• You're a pretty kitty.  Oh, look; here's your mousie. Listen to the mousie squeak.

B.  Talking THROUGH the cat.  This form of language is considerably more frequent than direct  communication WITH the creature.  When we (my sister and I) talk "through" the cat, we are actually hoping that the Cat (our ostensible interlocutor) will use her fourth-dimensional powers to either 1) transfer the message to another usually unresponsive human, or 2) help the speaker clarify his/her own thoughts and arrive at a possible course of action. 

Examples of "hoped-for transfer."

• Sasha, you lazy cat! Why don't you make yourself useful and unload the dishwasher?
• Well, Kitty, I bet you want to watch the Gophers game, don't you?
• Oh, Kitty.  Look at that pile of laundry that needs to be folded.  If it was all folded up, you could nap on it, couldn't you?  I bet you'd like that.

Examples of "hoped-for clarification."

• Well, we haven't done very much today, have we, Kitty?  You sleep all the time.  I'll bet you're clinically depressed.  You are a truly useless Cat.
• What do you think about health care, Kitty?  You don't really know, do you?  You're such a dork.  I suppose we have to start somewhere.  You'd like some health care, wouldn't you, Kitty?  I bet the Republicans would rather give health care to dorky cats than to poor people.  Well, duh.

A word should be said in conclusion about Kitty's reaction to our various linguistic acts.  She usually responds to commands, especially if they are shouted or screamed, by running under the wingback chair. She then sulks briefly and stares out the window (seeking fourth-dimensional support for her humiliating ordeal?).  She may show some slight interest in endearments, but she is easily overstimulated and, when thus agitated, she runs back under the wingback chair. "Transfer" and "Clarification" messages, on the other hand, do not seem to affect her in any significant way.  But perhaps her blank look is merely the result of intense concentration and effort to help us poor humans "get it."  

Good Kitty.

Screen doors

How does one learn to not know and shut up about not knowing?

Shouldn't I have acquired these skills much earlier in my life?  But no!  All along, I've bought into the notion that things were knowable and explainable.

At least things that we "needed" to know.

What a lot of suffering I've caused myself--by refusing to acknowledge (funny word) that almost everything of any real importance is incomprehensible and therefore inexplicable.

I'm ready to admit this now.  But the admission leaves a very big hole in my life.  What should I rely on if, as now seems incontrovertible, my rational powers are inadequate to deal with anything beyond immediate, concrete problems (e.g., how to restart the garbage disposal).

I'm acutely embarrassed that I clung so long to the delusions of academia:  the arrogant conviction that either reason or science or cognition of some sort would provide--if not ultimate answers (I've always recognized that SOME portion of reality would lie beyond the ken of a finite being)--at least all the information NECESSARY for meaningful human existence.  All we "need," as I said before.

Such a crock.  An outright lie--that I espoused and taught to my students!

Now, the emptiness and the horror.  Knowing leads only to not knowing.  And, unlike the mystics, I cannot find this kenosis either comforting or satisfying.  Yes, maybe I'm suffering less, since I'm expecting less--but I'm also feeling less "myself"--more unhinged, more ajar.  A squeaky, flailing screen door in the wind.

But still making way too much noise, huh?

La guerre de Troie

Dans la Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu, Giraudoux imagine trois messages venant de trois dieux olympiens :  Aphrodite, Pallas (Athéna) et Zeus.  Le message d’Aphrodite :  si Pâris et Hélène sont séparés, il y aura la guerre.  Le message de Pallas :  si Pâris et Hélène ne sont pas séparés, il y aura la guerre.  Le message de Zeus : si Héctor et Ulysse ne s’arrangent pas pour satisfaire et Aphrodite et Pallas, il y aura la guerre.

Que les négociations et les pourparlers commencent, alors !  Et grand bien que cela nous fasse.

Car, quelles sont, effectivement, les possibilités d’action dans la vie humaine ?  Quels vrais choix avons-nous, si la guerre arrivera quoi que nous décidions ?  Oh, je sais—il faut résister quand même afin de trouver, dans la beauté de la résistance, un brin de bonheur, un sentiment de supériorité aux dieux impitoyables et inhumains.  Le triomphe de la tragédie, etc, etc, etc. 

Mais j’en ai marre.  C’est fatigant, cette « dignité humaine » dont Pascal voulait que nous nous vantions.  Peu importe qu'on soit "roseau pensant"--ceux qui travaillent à « bien penser » finissent exactement comme ceux qui passent leur vie dans la bêtise la plus marécageuse, par périr dans la guerre inévitable prédestinée par des forces démentes.

N’y a-t-il pas d’autres voies ?  d’autres « principes de la morale » ?  Comment peut-on, enfin, nous débarrasser de ces dieux—ces puissances qui sont d’autant plus tyranniques qu’elles se logent, non seulement sur le mont Olympe mais aussi, au fond de nos cœurs ?  D’où viendra le pouvoir d'expulser et de tuer ces abominables divinités maléfiques ?


Nietzsche avait sans doute raison quand il a annoncé la mort du Dieu des Chrétiens.  Mais LES dieux plus anciens—ceux qui contrôlent le destin humain, qui sont le destin humain—ne sont certainement pas morts.  Peut-être ne pourront-ils jamais l’être.


Est-il permis d’espérer ?

Metamorphosis

I've been thinking a lot about conversion.  No, I'm not planning to be born again (once was enough), but I'm interested in the psychological phenomenon (or phenomena) that this word describes, especially in a religious context.

The broadest dictionary definition of conversion is "alteration in nature or state"--ie., metamorphosis.  Obviously, a lot of religious "converts" do not think of their conversion as anything nearly so fundamental:  they are merely exchanging one set of doctrines and practices for another set.  They do not see this switch in external loyalties as involving any kind of meaningful alteration in their internal make-up--they remain, in their selfhood, what they were before.  Thus, when he married a Catholic, my brother "converted" from Presbyterianism to Catholicism (not particularly demanding); thus, too, 15th Century Spanish Jews and Muslims, in order to avoid death at the hands of los reyes catolicos, "converted" to Christianity (quite demanding, but still not a genuine alteration in the converso's essential self).  In other words, most conversions are fairly superficial, involving external behavior--not profound changes in how the convert understands and experiences his own being.

Such conversions strike me as somewhat dishonest--convenient rather than sincere, superficial rather than fundamental.

But what about those emotional "born again" experiences?  Aren't they genuine "alterations" in one's fundamental psychology?  Undoubtedly some individuals do indeed experience a complete transformation in self-awareness that amounts to a sort of metamorphosis.  The conversion of St. Paul comes to mind.  And St. Augustine under the fig tree.  And Martin Luther's overwhelming reaction to "the just shall live by faith alone."  And Pascal's Memorial.  The subsequent lives of these men are proof that they were, indeed, turned around and, in some sense, "reborn."  After their conversions, they were new and free and unafraid to assume responsibility for what they now understood they were.

But I wonder if the most frequent born-again experiences aren't, in fact, rather elaborate self-deceptions--convenient, bad-faith justifications for NOT changing, for NOT altering one's "self", for NOT taking responsibility for one's freedom.  Let us say, for instance, that you are a woman trapped in a dead-end marriage with an unloving husband and an unfulfilling life as a housewife.  Your existence makes no sense and you suffer every day.  Then, how lucky!, you have an "experience" and you "accept Jesus."  Now you can tell yourself that Jesus, at least, loves you and that for Jesus, at least, the messiness of your life makes some kind of sense.

But in truth, you haven't changed a thing in your life--and your fundamental psychology remains the same:  you are still somebody's "thing."  Worse:  you now find that the only way you can feel good about yourself is to brag about your conversion and assert, dishonestly, that YOU are living rightly, whereas OTHERS are in error.

In short, your "conversion" did not change your nature.  It merely afforded you a justification for not changing-- for not casting out your own personal demons but rather, for finding demons in others in order to feel good about yourself.

Not a pretty picture.  Ted Haggard.  Jim Bakker.  John Ensign.   With apologies to Kafka, these guys are genuine dung beetles who, alas, never REALLY metamorphosed into authentic human beings.

The Great Fiction Anthology

I often sit and look at my books, rather untidily displayed on the four bookcases in my study.  Sometimes I think briefly about organizing them according to some more logical system (this feeling passes quickly); sometimes I contemplate actually reading some tome or other that I know I should have read, but have never had the intellectual fortitude to tackle (Ulysses, for example).  Mostly, though, I just sit and look.  Books give me security, even those that I haven't read:  they provide me with a sense--inauthentic, I vaguely know, but still comforting--that all the things I don't understand are nevertheless understood by somebody--the people who wrote those books.  So, if I genuinely have to know something, I can always grab one of those volumes and find the answer.

I have never felt, however (at least not in my adult life) that any ONE of those books had ALL of the answers.  It takes a whole bookcase...or so...

This morning, as I was staring at the "big book" section of my library, it occurred to me that the very fattest of the big books are, in fact, anthologies--compilations of writings by various authors:  The Norton Anthology of American Literature; the Norton Anthology of British Literature; The Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry; The Complete Works of William Shakespeare; Eighteenth Century French Plays--and, of course, the grandaddy of them all--The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books, New Revised Standard Version.

All of these anthologies, as I recall, contain some pretty good stories--and also a whole lot of junk (yes, c'mon, Coriolanus and The Winter's Tale!!!)--and all were put together by editors who had particular agendas.

Take the Bible, for example.  Though various biblical books (and parts of books) had been edited and re-edited over the course of almost 1,000 years, the final and definitive editors were apparently the bishops and "dignities" attending the Synod of Hippo in  393 (whose anthology was, as it were, given a second edition by the Council of Trent in 1546--at least for Catholics ). What was the agenda of these ecclesiastical worthies, I wonder?  Did they have to include "junk" just to satisfy current political or religious "correctness"?   Probably.

But the stupid stuff shouldn't prevent us from appreciating the good stuff--from the OT: Ruth, Job, Ecclesiastes, stories about Moses and David and Daniel.  From the NT:  the Sermon on the Mount and the parables and the crucifixion accounts and a couple of Paul's "essays."  These are good stories and they point metaphorically to important truths about the human condition.

But dang--they are not historical FACTS (though they may contain some facts) or literal truth.  Why do people keep refusing to read the Great Anthology as a collection of meaningful STORIES--stories like Hamlet or Huckleberry Finn, stories that have themes and plots and protagonists and antagonists and messages but that are, nonetheless, essentially fiction--and sometimes rather flawed fiction.

Memory, too, is flawed, I know.  We don't remember things as they really were, but rather as it is currently convenient to think they were.  Hence, I can't be sure whether the following tale is what actually happened or whether it is a conflation of several related memories--(not entirely unlike most Bible stories, I suppose).  Anyway, here's the anecdote.

When I was a teenager, my family belonged to the First Presbyterian Church of Lewiston, Minnesota.  The pastor of this little congregation was a rather formidable giant (both physically and intellectually) named John Munchoff who, as I recall, preached tolerance and open-mindedness with a ferocity that was decidedly intolerant.  One day, while dutifully affording pastoral counsel to a group of pious ladies (members, I suppose, of the "Dorcas Circle" or the "Martha Circle"), he found himself listening to the awe-inspired testimony of Jessie Jackson, who was excitedly recounting a "miracle" that had happened in her very home.  Apparently Mrs. Jackson had made a large batch of dill pickles and had decided to transport them to the basement where they would be stored pending eventual consumption.  Unfortunately, at the top of the staircase, she had juggled the jars in her arms and sent one of them tumbling down the entire flight of steps.  But lo, the miracle had then occurred:  rather than shattering and rendering its contents inedible, the Mason jar had arrived at the basement landing entirely intact.  Mrs. Jackson had devoutly thanked Jesus for saving both herself and her pickles.

Reverend Munchoff, undoubtedly anxious to leave this prattling circle, said something offhand about "miracles"--opining that God probably had better things to do than suspend the laws of physics in order to save a jar of dill pickles.  This remark, however jokingly offered, deeply wounded Mrs. Jackson.  In her distress, she yanked open her Bible and, jabbing desperately at the random text, sputtered, "But the BIBLE SAYS there are miracles."  Whereupon Munchoff grabbed the Bible out of her hands and flung it across the room at the wall.  "Jessie," he thundered, "the Bible is JUST A BOOK."

In tears, Mrs. Jackson left both the room and the parish, joining--probably that very day--the Evangelical and Reformed Church, where pickle miracles were apparently acknowledged and where the Bible was not regarded as merely a book.

Too bad.

Too bad.

LMAO

We are told that "laughter is the best medicine."  But is it?  Queen Victoria was famously "not amused," and she reigned 63 years and lived to be 81.  Not bad for solemn political correctness, stiff upper lips and all that.  Moreover, Victoria was pretty much Queen of the Whole World, wasn't she? and, to top it all off, Her Dour Majesty presided over an empire in which (reputedly according to the Queen herself), lesbianism didn't even exist!

I suppose, for "certain" queens, that's about as good as it gets.

But I'm such a rebel.  I just can't imagine a world without lesbians.  I need Rachel Maddow, and on a regular basis.  I need Lily Tomlin and Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf and Ellen DeGeneres.  Why?  Well, mostly because they make me laugh, yes--even Virginia Woolf with Orlando and her one-armed billboard hanger in To the Lighthouse.


LMAO.

Oddly, I have a reputation for being just about as mean and sour as the Old Queen herself when protocol demanded that she speak to Gladstone.  Students used to ask me why I never smiled.  School secretaries used to ask my friends why "Ken was so mad."  Well, shoot.  I can't help it that my facial muscles have always drooped.  And the truth is, I really do love to laugh.

But my critics were right about one thing:  I'm mean.  I just can't resist laughing at other people. In fact, I have indeed laughed my ass off--I simply have no butt left, though, at one time I had a pretty good one--and most of that laughing has been at the expense of the various idiots with whom, alas, I must live out my life.

Public figures, like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck, of course--but most especially a whole host of silly ninnies who have served as co-workers, bosses, students, parents of students, clergymen, teachers, waiters in restaurants and, let us not forget, customer service representatives.

I think it was Baudelaire who remarked that laughter is "satanic."   Haha.  So, I made fun of you. Tough titty. Unlike Victoria, I AM amused.  And BTW, the devil made me do it.