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Blogs, Socials, Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, The Press

What Should a Scholar Do When Civilization Topples?

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Clive James’s book of essays called Cultural Amnesia offers a take on a German medieval scholar who wrote influentially on literature and Western civilization. As the Nazi party began to gain power, Ernst Robert Curtius warned of danger to come, but when it did come, Curtius retreated into his scholarly study and said no more. He didn’t directly support the Nazis, but with his silence, one has to wonder where his loyalties settled.

James says many German and French intellectuals prior to WWII wanted to believe they could forge wonderful, cultural bonds high above the dirty politics of their day. He calls this a “wishful, wistful thought.”

Most of our wishful thinking is about what we love. . . . But if we are to learn anything from catastrophe, it is wise to remember what some of the men who shared our passions once forgot. Curtius forgot that continuity is not in itself an inspiration for culture, merely a description of it.

Curtius thought he was doing his humble part to preserve civilization, and it wasn’t worthless work, but the hard chore of cultural preservation was being accomplished by the men in bombers, parachutes, and fatigues. It wasn’t the time to discern the patterns of principles in the past; it was the time to fight for the morals they already had.

Curtius the universal scholar is left looking depressingly restricted, and humanism is left with its besetting weakness on display—the temptation it carries within it to reduce the real world to a fantasy even while presuming to comprehend everything that the world creates.

Clive James, Cultural Amnesia, p. 159

It’s been another week, hasn’t it? Here are some links to consider.

Legacy Press: Are there any good journalists working for the biggest names in news? “These seven failures from the past few weeks should dispel any benefit of the doubt you have left for the corporate media’s honesty.“

Russia: A new book exposes a movement I wish American opinionmakers understood. “Russia is systematically and deliberately instilling in its children hatred, vengefulness, and the desire to kill.“

Poetry: William Cowper said, “Despair made amusements necessary, and I found poetry the most agreeable amusement.”

Dostoevsky: John Stamps praises the Michael R. Katz translation of The Brothers Karamazov, calling it thrilling and lively. Katz doesn’t attempt a literal translation but adapts the work to English ears by simplifying the naming convention, cutting back some repetition, and using footnotes instead of endnotes.

Woodlands: Two forest lovers, ages 10 and 8, “have hiked every trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park”—900 miles of hiking.

Photo by David Hawkes on Unsplash

Music

Sunday Singing: Jerusalem the Golden

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The last hymn of the month was written by Bernard of Cluny (12th century), who is thought to be French born to English parents. He is most known for this poetic work De contemptu mundi (“On Condemning the World”), written ~1140 and dedicated to the abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable. Englishman John Mason Neale (1818-1866) gave us this translation.

“Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. (Rev. 21:9-11 ESV)

1 Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
beneath your contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed.
I know not, O I know not, what joys await us there;
what radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.

2 They stand, those halls of Zion, all jubilant with song,
and bright with many an angel, and all the martyr throng.
The Prince is ever in them, the daylight is serene;
the pastures of the blessed are decked in glorious sheen.

3 There is the throne of David; and there, from care released,
the song of them that triumph, the shout of them that feast;
and they who with their Leader have conquered in the fight,
forever and forever are clad in robes of white.

4 O sweet and blessed country, the home of God’s elect!
O sweet and blessed country, that eager hearts expect!
Jesus, in mercy bring us to that dear land of rest;
who art, with God the Father and Spirit, ever blest.

Blogs, Socials, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Fiction, Poetry

Old Book Love, a Pub Renewed, and More

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Here’s a Thoroughly Professional Video showing a couple of my antique books. They aren’t commercially valuable, but they’re pretty and have the humanistic value of a great books. On the left is the Complete Works of Shakespeare, a Walter J. Black edition, which I think means it’s cheap. I say it’s leather bound, but I’m sure it’s imitation leather. On the right is the Works of Edmund Spenser, an 1895 MacMillan edition.

It’s too bad I don’t have something really nice to show you, but I may record more physical books to better reveal their tangible value, especially if I can up my A/V quality.

Inklings: “The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) has purchased the historic Eagle and Child pub on St Giles’ from St John’s College, with plans to refurbish and reopen the space to the public.”

Poetry: From Philip Larkin
“For nations vague as weed,
For nomads among stones,
Small-statured cross-faced tribes
And cobble-close families
In mill-towns on dark mornings
Life is slow dying.”

Horror: Mike Duran has written on horror stories and how they fit with a Christian worldview.

Also, some of the story of the man who portrayed Father Damien Karras in The Exorcist.

(Photo: “The Eagle and Child,” Hofendorf/ Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

Music

Sunday Singing: When This Passing World Is Done

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In 1837, the influential Scottish preacher Robert Murray McCheyne wrote today’s hymn of looking to the next life in faith.

“Therefore I tell you, her sins, iwhich are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47 ESV).

1 When this passing world is done,
when has sunk yon glaring sun,
when we stand with Christ on high
looking o’er life’s history,
then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then, how much I owe.

2 When I hear the wicked call
on the rocks and hills to fall,
when I see them start and shrink
on the fiery deluge brink,
then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then, how much I owe.

3 When I stand before the throne,
dressed in beauty not my own,
when I see thee as thou art,
love thee with unsinning heart,
then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then, how much I owe.

4 When the praise of heav’n I hear,
loud as thunders to the ear,
loud as many waters’ noise,
sweet as harp’s melodious voice,
then, Lord, shall I fully know,
not till then, how much I owe.

5 Chosen not for good in me,
wakened up from wrath to flee,
hidden in the Savior’s side,
by the Spirit sanctified,
teach me, Lord, on earth to show,
by my love, how much I owe.

Authors, Fiction, Non-fiction

Peace, Long Sought and Fought For

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“Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint;
    preserve my life from dread of the enemy.
Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,
    from the throng of evildoers,
who whet their tongues like swords,
    who aim bitter words like arrows,
shooting from ambush at the blameless,
    shooting at him suddenly and without fear.” (Ps. 64:1-4 ESV)

Israel: Israel has fought for peace for decades. Here’s one story of the life-long war:

The occupation of Gaza was a burr, not a territorial benefit. In the decades following the 1967 war, hundreds of thousands of Israelis moved themselves to the West Bank, to the ancient provinces of Judea and Samaria, the historical home of the Jewish people, where they formed the “settlements” that have caused such controversy. But Jews do not hear the same mystic chords of memory from Gaza, and so efforts to settle them in Gaza to create geopolitical “facts on the ground” never really took root. By the early 2000s, 8,500 Israelis had moved to 21 tiny settlements, in a situation so dangerous that those 8,500 Jewish Gazans had to be guarded by 24,000 Israeli soldiers.

Israel’s enemies: Will the real neo-Nazi please stand up? “Contemporary Marxism is not some secret conspiracy. It is right there in the open telling us what it is and what it wants.”

Novels: Author Richard Russo “discovered that what really interested readers were his stories about growing up with an often-absent father in a declining upstate New York manufacturing community filled with struggling but memorable characters whom some might call ‘deplorables.’” 

Un-cancelation: Timothy L. Jackson, a professor of music theory, seems to be winning his fight against those who would censor him.

Family of C.S. Lewis: What happened to Warnie Lewis after his brother Jack’s death? A new book focuses on his correspondence with a missionary doctor in in Papua New Guinea.

Photo by Juli Kosolapova on Unsplash

Music, Non-fiction

County Highway 1.2: The Swifties Edition

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“They’re Taylor Swift fans,” the woman cleaning the floor beside me helpfully explains. “They’re very nice, but they leave glitter everywhere.”

Is County Highway, the new newspaper for America written and edited by living human beings, selling out in its second issue or weeding out its readership by publishing a five-page article on Taylor Swift’s Eros concert in Seattle? I can’t say I was prepared to read it, but I did, and taking two pages before getting to Swift herself was helpful. (I shouldn’t say that, because I don’t dislike I’ve heard of her music. I can still a few lines, but as a 50+ year old man, I feel I have better things to listen to, like maybe K-pop.) Writer David Samuels contrasts the messaging in Swift’s concert with the reality of living in Seattle, where cops have no power to handle public harassers and residents learn to ignore all humans around them in an effort to Do No Harm to the ones who’ve intended harm to themselves. The mostly female concert audience affirmed they were cute and deserved better—yeah, that’s the message the city needs to hear. If only music would get them there.

What’s in the rest of this issue? There’s a lengthy piece on Mule Days, “The Greatest Mule Show on Earth,” in Bishop, California, which used to be “one of the biggest agricultural festivals in America.” There’s an essay on logging in July, another on the equinox, and one about a 1986 cookbook called White Trash Cooking–“A Confederate general and a gay man who liked cole slaw have more in common with each other than with a Yankee.”

There’s an article about interviewing one of the men who claim to know Many Important Details about extraterrestrials and UFOs and is both eager and reluctant to share. If you watched some of the congressional hearings on UFOs several weeks ago, you probably saw this guy. Yes, he knew critical details; no, he couldn’t share them openly.

There’s an interesting piece on how GPS changes the way we understand our environment, our local world. Alex Perez has a humorous story about professional wrestling in Puerto Rico. There’s a chilling account of corrupt dealings with Columbian presidents and the Clinton Foundation.

Perhaps the heart of County Highway can be seen in this quote from the essay, “The Bull Calf,” by Sage Radecki.

Trying like hell to fix something we saw as a problem, when in reality, it wasn’t ours to fix. Nature, in all its beauty and sorrows, is something we cannot overcome. It’s simply something we need to make space for. I’m learning this daily here, on the ranch, in our work in the field and my time tending to the garden.

That’s a good word.

Music

Sunday Singing: Saints Bound for Heaven

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Today’s hymn is a traditional one on returning home. The arrangement above is by Alice Parker and Robert Shaw. The text below is from the 1916 National Jubilee Melodies, which includes two more verses than the recording above.

“Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.” (Joshua 1:3 ESV)

1 Our bondage it shall end,
By and by, by and by;
Our bondage here shall end, by and by;
From Egypt’s yoke set free,
Hail the glorious jubilee,
And to Canaan we’ll return,
By and by, by and by,
And to Canaan we’ll return by and by.

2 Our Deliverer will come,
By and by, by and by;
Our Deliverer will come, by and by;
And our sorrows have an end,
With our threescore years and ten,
And vast glory crown the day,
By and by, by and by,
And vast glory crown the day, by and by.

3 Tho’ our enemies are strong,
We’ll go on, we’ll go on;
Tho’ our enemies are strong, we’ll go on;
Tho’ our hearts dissolve with fear,
Lo, Sinai’s God is near,
While the fiery pillar moves,
We’ll go on, we’ll go on,
While the fiery pillar moves, we’ll go on.

4 Thro’ Mara’s bitter streams
We’ll go on, we’ll go on;
Thro’ Marah’s bitter streams, we’ll go on;
Tho’ Baca’s vale be dry,
And the land yield no supply,
To a land of corn and wine,
We’ll go on, we’ll go on,
To a land of corn and wine, we’ll go on.

5 And when to Jordan’s floods,
We are come, we are come,
And when to Jordan’s floods, we are come;
Jehovah rules the tide,
And the waters He’ll divide,
And the ransomed host shall shout,
We are come, we are come,
And the ransomed host shall shout, we are come.

6 Then with all the happy throng,
We’ll rejoice, we’ll rejoice;
Then with all the happy throng, we’ll rejoice;
Shouting glory to our King,
Till the vaults of heav’n ring,
And thro’ all eternity,
We’ll rejoice, we’ll rejoice,
And thro’ all eternity, we’ll rejoice.

Authors

Herta Müller Asks If You Have a Handkerchief

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Herta Müller, author of The Hunger Angel and The Fox Was Ever the Hunter, won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, as John Wilson notes in his piece on the value of this award. For her lecture at the Swedish Academy, she talked about handkerchiefs.

The harassment was passed down; the rumor was set into circulation among my colleagues. That was the worst. You can defend yourself against an attack, but there’s nothing you can do against libel. Every day I prepared myself for anything, including death. But I couldn’t cope with this perfidy. No preparation made it bearable. Libel stuffs you with filth; you suffocate because you can’t defend yourself. . . .

Since now I really had to make sure I came to work, but no longer had an office, and since my friend could no longer let me into hers, I stood in the stairwell, unable to decide what to do. I climbed up and down the stairs a few times and suddenly I was again my mother’s child, because I HAD A HANDKERCHIEF. I placed it on one of the stairs between the second and third floors, carefully smoothed it out and sat down. I rested my thick dictionaries on my knee and translated the descriptions of hydraulic machines. I was a staircase wit and my office was a handkerchief. 

Music: And just one more thing, critic Ted Gioia shares his 12 favorite problems, such as how can music change lives and how can artists sustain creativity.

Music

Sunday Singing: How Bright These Glorious Spirits Shine

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Today’s hymn about the life to come is from the great Issac Watts (1674-1748), an English Nonconformist minister and the father of English hymnody. The text has been arranged to fit other tunes, which may be more commonly sung than this one judging by what’s available on YouTube. The video above is a piano recording for the tune “Bethlehem” by German musician and clergyman Gottfried Wilhelm Fink (1783-1846).

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands . . .” (Rev. 7:9 ESV)

1 How bright these glorious spirits shine!
Whence all their white array?
How came they to the blissful seats
of everlasting day?
Lo! these are they from suff’rings great
who came to realms of light!
and in the blood of Christ have washed
those robes which shine so bright.

2 Now, with triumphal palms, they stand
before the throne on high,
and serve the God they love, amidst
the glories of the sky.
His presence fills each heart with joy,
tunes ev’ry mouth to sing:
by day, by night, the sacred courts
with glad hosannas ring.

3 Hunger and thirst are felt no more,
nor suns with scorching ray;
God is their sun, whose cheering beams
diffuse eternal day.
The Lamb which dwells amidst the throne
shall o’er them still preside,
feed them with nourishment divine,
and all their footsteps guide.

4 ‘Mong pastures green he’ll lead his flock
where living streams appear;
and God the Lord from ev’ry eye
shall wipe off ev’ry tear.
To him who sits upon the throne,
the God whom we adore,
and to the Lamb that once was slain,
be glory evermore!

Poetry, Writing

Seeds Among the Ruins and Silence

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The greatest displeasure of the largest number
Is the law of nature. – Pao Chao, “The Ruined City”

Paul J. Pastor writes about The Kalevala, an epic poem written from Karelian and Finnish folklore, focusing on “the great bard Väinämöinen” who chooses to live

on the island with no words
on the mainland with no trees.

After a long while, if I’m reading this correctly, Väinämöinen begins to sing the world into being.

Pastor applies this to our own small creative works. Silence, not just moments of quiet, but true silence that endures beyond our comfort can be “the great and difficult friend of the writer and the artist.”

We are not artistic dynamos. We cannot truly create anything of own mere will. We must rely on the Lord and his revelation, both general and specific. Noise, even a natural and healthy noise of life, can drain us—at least, it does drain me.

And yet what brings Väinämöinen, the bard of bards, into the fullness of his power is precisely that condition of emptiness that so disgusts or unsettles us. It is being in the boring-place, the empty-place, the still-place that something happens to him, something so vast that nature itself unlocks her most intimate secrets.

Photo by jean wimmerlin on Unsplash

The great bard began singing on a rock so bare we would have trouble finding a similar one today, but we may find a deafening silence among ruins, a place where

. . . grains of sand, like startled birds,
are looking for a safe place to settle.
Bushes and creepers, confused and tangled,
seem to know no boundaries.

These verses come from fifth century Chinese poet Pao Chao (or Bān Zhāo). In “The Ruined City,” he describes a vast plain with visible canals and roads cut into it, all leading to crumbled ends and weeds.

The young girls from east and south
Smooth as silk, fragrant as orchids
White as jade with their lips red,
Now lie beneath the dreary stones and barren earth.
The greatest displeasure of the largest number
Is the law of nature.

This too is silence and a little despair; we need more than human hope to endure it. Can we throw seeds into the wind that will sprout in what time the Lord will give them? Kyrie, eleison.