Christian leaders have attacked contemplatives on and off for centuries, banning their books and threatening contemplatives with prison, exile, or death. The more concentrated church power became, the more it opposed contemplation. This type of prayer is beyond the scope of leadership’s control because it is interior and personal, even if it is cultivated and supported in community or through spiritual direction.
Mystics of all stripes probably should be pushed against, because they tend to encourage a loosely defined Prozac spirituality that leaves religious distinctives in favor of personal inner peace. Contemplative prayer habits step into the space of mystical Christianity. But I suspect the modern evangelical criticism of it comes largely from modernist thinking, not solid biblical interpretation.
For generations we have been taught that segments of the Christian life can be accomplished in a few clear steps. For prayer, some teach the pattern of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. Such a pattern can be helpful in directing our prayers, but as with so many things we may hold to the pattern more than we hold to the Lord. And whether we pray this way or another way, we may hold to the answers we receive more than we hold to our Lord, even telling each other that our prayers were answered because we delivered them in a specific way. Contemplative prayer puts those things aside, so we have very little to hold onto and ask whether we’re doing it right.
If this is a habit that can cultivate a deeper satisfaction in Christ, then we need not neglect it.
I have enough thoughts for a lecture (if anybody wanted a lecture), but I’ll lay some of them out very briefly here.
The Church adjusts to the world. It isn’t determined by the world – or shouldn’t be – but we have to relate to people as they live, and we have to live in the world as it is. So we adjust our message to the tenor of the times. We have to. It’s not necessarily bad.
But it can be bad when it goes off the rails.
The modern world, I think, began with Isaac Newton. Newton occupied the role of prophet in European civilization, sparking what we call the Enlightenment. “God said let Newton be, and all was light,” as Alexander Pope wrote. The Enlightenment achieved the level of religion – and that religion was Deism, where God was sublimated into a cosmic Watchmaker. Intellectuals believed they now understood the laws of Nature, and soon all questions would be answered.
The Church followed the Enlightenment to an extent. Great emphasis was now placed on correct doctrine. Cold reason was elevated, in some quarters, to a theological virtue.
But the Enlightenment didn’t last long.
In practice, it was inadequate to actual human life. Enlightenment thought was like trying to feed people with vitamin pills only. Technically all the necessary nutrients might be there, but people need more than that. They need flavor and texture and scent. They need the whole human experience. The Enlightenment didn’t feed the soul.
So the Enlightenment was replaced. It was replaced by two
movements (you could call it one of them a sub-movement, but I like the sub-movement
too much to subordinate it).
The secular reaction was Romanticism. Romanticism reacted
against cold formalism and logical reductionism. Romanticism centered on passion.
Life was to be lived with intensity. Love and freedom were what made life
worthwhile.
But there was a theological corollary to Romanticism (some,
as I mentioned, would probably call it a sub-movement). This was Pietism (the
forerunner of contemporary Evangelicalism). To the rationality of Enlightenment
Christianity, the Pietists replied, “That’s not enough! Jesus’ greatest
commandment was not to understand God, but to love Him!” They emphasized a
personal experience with Christ and a life of growing sanctification, learning
to love Him more.
Now an argument can be made that Pietism led directly to the Liberalism of today’s mainline churches. It’s argued among Lutherans, in some quarters, that Pietism’s emphasis on personal experience led people to set their subjective feelings at the center of their faith – which is what Christian postmodernism is all about.
And there’s probably a measure truth in that.
But I would relate it, once again, to the Church’s habit of imitating the world. Christian postmodernism (I maintain) is mostly the fault of secular postmodernism. The nihilism and despair that followed the World Wars led secular thinkers to existentialism and moral relativism. The mainline churches followed suit, rejecting all authority, including that of the Bible and orthodox doctrine. (Leaving both the Pietists and the orthodox out in the cold.)
It wasn’t the Pietists’ fault, in my view. But they did get
sucked in.
The one unifying principle of all these theological fashions, it seems to me, is following the world. We have to adjust to the world, but we must not let it set our agenda.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12;2, ESV)
The second season of the Icelandic miniseries, Trapped, (I reviewed Season One below) was – in some ways – superior to the first (in my view). There were parts I didn’t care for, but I admit that was mostly due to my personal opinions and tastes.
Two years have passed since we last saw our bearded hero,
Andri Olafsson (Olafur Darri Olafsson). He’s moved back to Reykjavik to be a
cop there again, one assumes to be close to his daughters, who were living with
his ex-wife. Only the older one, Thorhildur, has returned to the small town of
Siglufjordur to be close to her friends – especially a particular boy. She is
now a rebellious teenager, and in the tradition of teenaged girls in thrillers,
is a complete idiot when it comes to her personal safety.
Andri is called back to Siglufjordur when a local farmer one
day appears near Parliament in Reykjavik, sets himself on fire, and tries to
ignite the Minister of Industries along with himself. She is, in fact, his twin
sister, a Siglufjordur native who long ago turned her back on the place. He had
been involved in protests against the expansion of an aluminum plant near his
home, as well as with right-wing nationalist groups. Shortly after Andri is
reunited with his old team of local cops, a manager at the plant is murdered,
setting off a string of crimes and arrests that culminate in a kidnapping and a
pursuit across the heaths.
There were several elements in the series that rubbed me the
wrong way. One was the involvement of right-wing groups – though when I think
of it, they were treated with surprising understanding. Another was the cliché of
the predatory industry that thinks it can make money by killing its customers.
Most uncomfortable of all was a subplot about homosexuals. Instead of the brief
heterosexual sex scene we saw in the first series, this time we got two men
involved in displays of affection – at one point in bed together. These are my
principles – I care about whether homosexuals live or die. I care that they not
be railroaded for crimes they didn’t commit. But I cannot be made to care whether
the boy gets the boy. There is no microscope sensitive enough to detect my
interest in that subject.
Another problem is the family relationships. Most of the
suspects (and victims) are bound (in classic saga style, I’ll admit) by a bewildering
tangle of marriages, divorces, and irregular liaisons. Everybody is a cousin or
an in-law of all the others, and for the life of me I couldn’t keep it all straight.
On the other hand, there were some fine elements here.
Because this story is set in the fall, we lose the claustrophobia of the snowed-in
town that so permeated Season One. Now we’re treated to vistas of Icelandic
heaths and mountains, herds of horses and flocks of sheep. Conscious tribute is
paid to the sagas, especially in a plot thread where a local boy flees the
police on horseback across the fells, looking for all the world like an outlaw
of old.
The resolution worked out in the same spirit as Season One –
the mystery is solved, the hostage rescued, but in a general environment of
ancient injuries, unhealed psychological wounds, and the shock of an Episode 8
plot development that blindsided me (at least).
All in all, fascinating TV, and pretty watchable. Cautions
for language and all the stuff I talked about.
A stupid 19th Century conception of a Viking skald.
In Trapped, the Icelandic miniseries I reviewed last night, both in the first season (which I reviewed) and the second (which I’m watching now), there’s a female character named Kolbrun. It was a familiar name to me, and by coincidence I came to the Tale of Tormod Kolbrunarskald in my reading of the Norwegian translation of Flatøy Book. Obviously this was a sign from heaven that I should share Tormod’s story with you.
Tormod Kolbrunarskald is an important character in the Saga of St. Olaf. He doesn’t appear in my novel, The Elder King, but I expect he’ll show up in a later book, because he’s an important character and has one of the most memorable deaths in saga literature. But that’s not my topic tonight. My topic is his backstory.
I’d always assumed that he got his nickname, which means “dark-brow poet,” because he had dark eyebrows. Turns out that’s not true. His nickname actually means, “Dark-Brow’s Poet”
This is the tale (in highly condensed form).
Tormod Bersesson was living at his father’s farm in
Laugabol, Iceland. Nearby, at a farm called Ogr, there lived a widow named
Grima who had a beautiful daughter named Tordis. Tormod got in the habit of
visiting Ogr, and spending time in private with the girl.
Eventually Grima, the mother, took Tormod aside and suggested
that he should either ask for the girl’s hand honestly, or leave her alone for
the sake of her reputation. Tormod hemmed and hawed, so to show she was
serious, Grima sent a thrall to kill Tormod, but the poet escaped with a wounded
hand.
After that, Tormod relocated to a fishing station his father
had at Bolungarvik. Nearby lived another widow, named Katla, who had a daughter
named Torbjorg, who was nicknamed Kolbrun because of her dark eyebrows.
Tormod thought Kolbrun not quite as pretty as Tordis, but nevertheless he started spending time with her. To gain her favor he wrote a series of poems, the “Kolbrun Poems.”
Later, when winter came, Tormod moved back to Laugabol, and renewed his visits with Tordis. At first she was distant. “I heard that you wrote a series of poems for a girl at Bolungarvik named Kolbrun,” she said.
“Oh, no!” Tormod lied. “That story is completely wrong. I
didn’t write those poems for Kolbrun. I wrote them for you.” He immediately recited
them for her, but changed the words so they now praised Tordis. Tordis was
pleased with this.
But that night, Tormod had a terrible dream. He saw Kolbrun floating in the darkness in front of his bed. She said, “You have broken your word to me. It’s dangerous to break your word to a witch. I will now lay this curse on you – your eyes will swell up and grow terribly painful. They will swell so that if it isn’t stopped they’ll pop right out of your head. The only way you can prevent this from happening is by announcing in public that the poems are mine, not Tordis’s, and that you lied.”
Tormod woke in terrible pain, and slept no more that night.
As soon as he could he assembled family and friends and confessed his lie.
Immediately his eyes improved, and soon he was well again.
But forever after he was known as Tormod, Kolbrun’s Poet.
My part-time job keeps me generally aware of Scandinavian miniseries, but somehow this Icelandic one, a few years old now, had escaped my notice. Trapped (Ófærð) is a crime series that has much in common with so many European crime series these days (except that the main character, instead of being a plucky single mother, is a plucky single father). But it‘s interesting in its own right, and the locations are fresh and scenic.
On a winter‘s day in the small northern Iceland town of Siglufjordur, a headless, limbless torso is fished out of the fjord. Since the ferry from Denmark just came in, the police have to detain the boat and all its passengers – displeasing the passengers, the crew, and the Danish government. The “big boys“ from the Reykjavik police are supposed to come in to investigate, but a sudden blizzard grounds all aircraft and road travel. So the responsibility falls on the three-person local force, most especially on the chief, Andri Olafsson (played by Olafur Darri Olafsson, surely a contender for some award for the most generously bearded TV detective in recent memory).
But Andri’s problems aren’t limited to solving the torso murder. There are the difficulties associated with the blizzard, as well as an avalanche that follows. Questions arise anew over a crime from the past – the death of Andri’s ex-wife’s sister in a fire in a fish factory, for which a young man went to prison (unjustly). There’s also a human trafficking investigation, involving two young Nigerian girls wandering lost in the snow. And there is political chicanery on the part of the town’s governing authorities, all involved in a shady land scheme with the Chinese.
It all works out to be pretty fascinating. The main character is a compelling and principled presence on screen, and the production values are high (this was the most expensive miniseries ever made in Iceland). The resolution ties up loose ends pretty well, though it’s typically Scandinavian in being rather downbeat and bleak. The Icelandic title has a broader meaning than the English word – it also refers to a blocked road. A running theme is the discontent of the town’s young people, who feel trapped in one of the remotest towns in a generally remote country.
But I enjoyed Trapped, and recommend it, with cautions for language, sex, brief nudity, and disturbing themes. There’s a second season, too.
Tomorrow I and the Vikings will be at the Nordic Music Festival at Lions Park in Victoria, Minnesota. 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. More information here. I will have books to sell.
I think I tried to watch one episode of the long-running BBC series, “Dalziel and Pascoe,” based on Reginald Hill’s mystery novels. It just didn’t grab me. But I thought I’d try one of the original books, to see if I caught the magic there. The formula’s pretty familiar – old, grizzled detective teamed with young, callow detective – only these books are old enough that the young detective is allowed to be male.
An Advancement of Learning (the title comes from a book by Sir Francis Bacon) takes place at Holm Coultram College, a fictional school in Yorkshire. A statue is being moved from the spot where it has stood for five years, when human bones are discovered under its base. They turn out to be those of the former Principal of the College, Alison Girling, who was assumed to have died in an avalanche in Switzerland, also about five years ago. Detective Inspector Andrew Dalziel and his assistant Peter Pascoe are assigned the case. Dalziel is an old working-class type, contemptuous of intellectuals and the academic life. Pascoe is a college graduate who once considered a scholar’s life – indeed an old college girlfriend turns out to be on the faculty here. They will encounter partisan instructors, politically radical students (who seem pretty mild by current standards – this was the early ‘70s), drugs and satanic rituals. And there will be more murders. All in all, Dalziel’s view of academics seems to be validated when all is revealed.
There were things I liked about An Advancement of Learning. It was written long enough ago that social norms were a little more conventional – homosexuality is still scandalous, and most people seem to be nominally Christian (though the only vocal Christian in the book is pretty unattractive).
But I didn’t care for author Hill’s writing technique. He spends a lot of pages telling us people’s thoughts. I’ve learned to expect to see plot advanced through dialogue and conflict, rather than interior monologue. So I found it kind of slow going. Also, although I was prepared to like Insp. Dalziel, I didn’t. His personality didn’t seem to go very deep. The ending was moderately satisfactory, though.
You may like this book more than I did. The language was pretty mild, and the violence and sex were mostly off stage.
However, these medieval literary creations innovated in that they revolved around the lives and deeds of real common people and their genealogies, as opposed to the largely moralistic, fairytale-like writings of the time in mainland Europe, where the main characters were knights or princes. The legacy of the sagas continues to live on up to our times, having inspired, among others, the setting and the mythical races of major high fantasy novels such as those from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien.
It’s a pretty good list. I’d suggest reading Eyrbyggja Saga as a companion to Laxdaela. But that would bump one of the others from the list, and I’ll admit Laxdaela is the better of the two.
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