on donne

In the Church of England, today, 31st of March, is the day on which John Donne (1631) is commemorated. In his honour, then, I post here one of his most 'aweful' poems - in that best sense of awful, as that which inspires and fills with awe.

Holy Sonnets, XIV

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

on bliss

this is blissful.

on theology and prayer

There is a perennial misunderstanding about the relation between theology and spirituality that mistakenly believes that theology (or theoria) comes first, and tells you what you need to know in order to practice your spirituality (praxis). This may be the order of logic but not the order of discovery. In real life, spirituality often precedes theology - it was only in following and obeying Jesus that the disciples began to discover who he was, and their fullest understanding of Jesus only comes after the resurrection, after the mysterious encounter on the road to Emmaus and the meal that followed it.

Something similar is said by almost all the early theologians of the Church, and in summarising the writing of Maximus the Confessor (a Byzantine theologian from the 6th century) Andrew Louth writes: "the contrast between Maximus in his major treatises and in his condensed summaries is not at all that between 'theology' and 'spirituality', for as we shall see, even in the densest of his theological treatises, Maximus' concern for the life of prayer and engagement with God is still uppermost. The purpose of theology is to safeguard against misunderstandings that frustrate a Christian life of prayer."
Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, London: Routledge, 1996. p. viii

should i give up practicing?

I'm on spring break this week, so there's not much news - I'm just getting started on my 20-page papers that are due at the end of semester.

I saw this clip on youtube today. Makes me wonder why I try!

The Road Not Taken

I thought I would post the full poem that inspired the title and tag-line for this blog.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

on historical-critical method

The first three words every biblical studies scholar learns are "We don't know." Try reading any commentary. Author? We don't know. Date of composition? We don't know. Provenance? We don't know. Logos in John's prologue referring to Greek concept of logos, or a translation of the Hebrew 'wisdom' in Sirach? We don't know. This is because knowledge deals with the realm of (near) certainties, but biblical scholars work in probability. Paul the author of Ephesians? Maybe, maybe not. There's evidence both ways, and so it becomes a question of probability, of balancing the evidence to see if the weight falls one way or the other.

Considering how little biblical scholars claim can be known, it's quite remarkable how they then proceed to reconstruct the text history with precise divisions between sources and where the redactor made changes. Read any commentary on the community background to the Johannine corpus and you'll be amazed at the imagination of biblical scholars who make startling jumps from tiny scraps of evidence.

This particular form of study is often referred to as the 'historical-critical' method, and the fantastical claims made has duly been parodied in this brilliant article. It's basically a satirical piece, applying the historical-critical method to Winnie the Pooh to show just how ridiculous claims about the 'assured results of higher criticism' often are. You can read the full article here for a bit of fun; here's a quote to give you a taste:

"Doublets also occur. We may mention brieþy the two accounts of meetings with a Heffalump (W 5; H 3). and two accounts of the building of a house.(H 1; 9), variously connected with Eeyore and with Owl. An excellent example of the redactor's method in intertwining his sources may be seen in the account of Pooh's being stuck in the entrance to Rabbit's house (W 2. 24). When Pooh realizes he is stuck, according to the Þrst source:

'Oh, help!', said Pooh. 'I'd better go back.'

But according to the second source:

'Oh, bother!', said Pooh. 'I shall have to go on.'

The redactor has simply set down these two contradictory statements side by side, and then has attempted to harmonize them by his own conþation:

'I can't do either!', said Pooh. 'Oh, help and bother!'

The clearest criterion, however, for the analysis of the sources is the attitude taken to Pooh, who is clearly no 'non-descript individual'./6/ The whole P-corpus may indeed be divided into sources favourable to Pooh, and sources hostile to Pooh.
The dominant impression gained by the modern reader of the books is that Pooh is a Bear of Very Small Brain. The following descriptions occur:

Bear of Little Brain (W 9.121)
Bear of Very Little Brain (W 9.130; H 1.174; etc.)
Bear with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of Brain (H 10.161)
He hasn't much brain, and may do something silly (W 9.127)
Silly old bear.(W 2.25, 26, 29; 3.37; 8.101)
Silly Old Pooh (W 10.142)
His spelling is Wobbly (W 6.73)

He is also depicted as getting into scrapes, difÞculties, and problems through his stupidity (passim).
It is of the greatest importance, however, to notice that this representation of Pooh actually comes from only one circle of tradition, which we may designate the D (or Dopey) source. A very different impression is given by other sources favourable to Pooh. Here he is the hero, deliverer (e.g. Þnder of Eeyore's tail, W 4), poet in many different genres (e.g. W 7.90), discoverer of the North Pole (W 8), and possibly also of the East Pole (W 9.122), though the tradition is somewhat uncertain at this point, inventor of the Floating Bear and the Brain of Pooh (W 9.129-30), culture-hero building the Þrst house (H 1.27) and inventing Pooh-sticks (H 6). His epithets in these narratives include:

Brave and Clever Bear (W 9.129)
Astute and Helpful Bear (H 8.139)
The best bear in all the world (W 10.143)
Sir Pooh de Bear (H 10.173)

And he has bestowed on him a lengthy list of honoriÞc titles (FOP, RC, PD, EC and TF, W 9.130).
We may discern, nonetheless, in the above catalogue, two portrayals of Pooh that are not entirely compatible with one another. According to some tales he is the man of genius and invention (e.g. inventor of the Brain of Pooh), but in others he Þgures rather as the reþective intellectual (e.g. author of wisdom poetry). Thus we may well suspect that we are dealing here with two sources, both perhaps deriving from one original Grundlage, but which we may distinguish and denominate the J (or Genius)/7/ source, and the E (or Egghead) source."