Literal and Figurative reading

To take it figuratively we must take it literally. This is a maxim that I want to try to think around in this post. For a while now, I have found tiresome the polemic against fundamentalists that condemns readers for interpreting the bible literally and then lectures on the virtues of reading the bible figuratively (for an example of this read the first chapter of Chris Hedge's American Fascists). The dichotomy of literal and figurative seems wrong headed for some reason.
Genesis
When I read the creation stories of Genesis I do not think that the world was actually created according to the 7 day scheme. I tend more toward the evolutionist frame work with a divine driver. However, there is a part of me that will not allow myself to junk the first three chapters of Genesis because I no longer think that they represent "reality", because, on some level I do think that they represent reality much better then say Darwin's On the Origin of Species. I don't think of the original composers of the text, and the later editors, as people who thought to themselves "I'm going to write a figurative story about creation for my children". I think that such authors said, I'm going to tell "our" perspective on the world. This is to say that I don't think of the first authors to be hung up with the enlightenment problems of empiricism. These authors were much more poetic, much more Heideggerian, if you will, meaning that they thought of themselves as living in a "house of language", a world contained by their theological convictions. This world was distinct because it was sustained by a God who was both singular and plural. Both in the world and beyond. Both evident and mysterious. To understand this God you must enter into figuration, while reading figurative statements as if they were literal. This is me is the essence behind the ontological argument proposed by Anselm of Cantebury: Imagine the greatest "thing"; now imagine that "thing" as real; isn't that better? (Anselm"And certainly that than which a greater cannot be imagined cannot be in the understanding alone. For if it is at least in the understanding alone, it can be imagined to be in reality too, which is greater."). With contemporary readers, I do not think that Anselm was trying to prove the a priori existence of God, but to help Christian, people of a particular faith, to understand what it is that they have hope in. To me the spirit of Anselm thus expressed, is extremely important to reading the tales of Genesis (one of my all time favourite pieces of literature - one I grow to value more and more on formal and aesthetic and anthropological grounds). To read Genesis according to a limp concept of figurative language, on that is not attached to a realist theology, is to undermine faith in God. This is what thinkers like Chris Hedges do while they imagine themselves to be correcting the blindness of hardly literate readers.

The Body of Christ:
In several places in the new testament Christians are referred to as the body of Christ. If we think of this with a limp concept of figuration we say that the man Jesus wanted to express how close the followers of his ethical ideology were to him to such extent that he used hyperbole, claiming that followers were actually him. This should be read as a concept of ideological tradition, whereby Jesus' thoughts are carried on by those who think and act likewise. To read Christ likewise, is to read him as though he were merely finite. We must actually enrich this finite reading, which is wrong only in that it limit's Jesus to the category of man, without ever approaching the infinity of Christ. Christians cannot think of themselves as only being part of an ideological body/tradition of teaching, they must flesh out this ideology by then understanding the mystical nature of this comment. Spiritually, Christians are the body of Christ. This means that our finite capacity as human beings is united with Christ's infinite capacity as the resurrected, un-end-able, God that he is. To be the body of Christ is to participate in God himself, the most real of the real. To think thus, we must entertain the figurative element in the statement, but read it literally. The finite nature of the language does not totally capture the mysterious reality, yet, it is one of the most useful doors through which we imagine this reality. It is not the only door, because Christ himself (as narrated in the Gospels) used other expressions to describe this mysterious event - the imagine of the vine and the branches. My brother in law speculates that this analogy has a natural referent - the vine - that was especially developed for the purpose of expressing Christ's message to believers. I do not permit myself such speculation, as it overshoots the mark from my perspective, but it is an interesting comment that may be aimed at getting folks to meditate on God's eternal foresight for the world. At any rate, Christians cannot afford not to think of themselves as literally embodying Christ on some level.

The End

To Taste

I am not a careful poet. In fact I find caring to much about punctuation during the writing freezes me up and I lose the vision. Today I was inspired by listening to Ryan Adams talk about the 15 albums he's written in the last 7 years. He defended his output and called everyone else lazy and afraid of their imagination. He claimed that we live in an era of art criticism that has forgotten how to create art. He claims that the critic kills art. There was something about what he said that resonated with the (almost forgotten) poet in me. I think I wrestle with two selves, the poet and the critic. The critic would not have me write, the poet lives only to write. Michael Winter wrote once about an artist who found the critic in him outgrew the poet. Yes. I know what you speak of young warrior. It is a tough thing to listen to the soul. To hear the rhythm of the cosmos in the solitude of your gray matter. So today, I turned the critic down low, and rolled a few of my favourite things around in my head - a song by Ryan Adams called Dancing Till the Stars go Blue, a Yoga pose called Dancing Shiva, the Eucharist, and Gregory of Nyssa's ontology.

Without Further Ado, Ladies and Gentlemen - To Taste


Amid cheerleaders and doomsayers
I stand, sand on my toes,
Warmed by the fire, waiting for the dance.
The great balance
Cupped hand before me,
Leg stretched out behind
Back arched
The muscles of my spirit invigorate
Suddenly my body begins to transform
Eternally transform, perpetually turning
Into the solar wind of time,
Perpetually reaching forward to the mosaic
Experience of the back side
The tail wind of

Nyssa would call this the pursuit of perfection
But what else do we have?
I’ve no taste for evil,
It just comes in cravings.

In weakness these holes spiral back through my
Substance and spew out my core
On the yellow road, I take steps
On the dolorosa, and move one foot
After another towards what?
I can not say,
Towards whom?
I shall never fully know,
But I will always have the promise of taste.

Take and eat,
These words haunt my Baptist
She cowers in the corner remembering all that is
And not knowing where to go, who to flee to…
Is it a question of groups, of feasting or pretending to feast?
Remembering a future time of great enjoyment.
There is an inescapable aspect to remembering
But,
We must eat to live, and I must eat more then symbols.

I’m hungry
hoc est corpus meum
Is me
Whoa, like Isaiah of old I feel trapped in lips unclean
Hopes with ends unforeseen
Not knowing where to step
Who to go to with time
Plans
Charity
Not knowing what charity I might have to give
What order lies in me to expel
Express
But a word lingers on my tongue

My mouth salivates for this word

The poetry of my life has been in neglect,
I have not found my epic, or perhaps I have been too involved in my epic, in my preparation for flight
That I have not found my myth.

Where do I go when I’m lonely?

Who do I call when I’m lost;
How can I lie right beside you peacefully, and
Watch the stars flow on and on,
Across a sky, some say has soured,
Some say will bust?
These are my questions,
My mystery at heart
That I worry myself about,
That I fear critics will take up,
This is my wordlessness that leaves me silent
As I tear through the fabric of time

Waiting for the dance.

Women In Art

This is a "morphage" of women in western uppercrusty art. I found it quiet good.

Who writes a novel?

I was mowing the lawn today thinking about my upcoming dissertation proposal presentation, and the thought occurred to me: who writes a novel? I'm working on Atlantic Canadian literature and the theme of religion though and in it, and what is coming to the fore is that Catholics are writing novels like they are going out of style. When you look back into the history of Can lit and At-can lit, you find that this is somewhat of a new thing. So I've been wondering why now? What makes one want to write a novel? What political and economic forces must be in place to make writing a novel something you might do? What follows is a conversation over gmail between me and my colleague, Holly (who works on Jews is film), about what gave rise to the novel:

1:22 PM me: who writes a novel?
1:23 PM Holly: a-a-an authour?
well, in biblical lit, we have the debate - "a person creates a document, not a community"
me: this is the big question that hit me while mowing the lawn....
Holly: but then again I don't know if that is true
1:24 PM a text is created FOR a community
me: that seems to be a debate with german romantic ancestry...and a novel isn't really any old document
Holly: no published authour creates just for him or herself
1:25 PM me: no author creates ex nihlo
Holly: yes - that is my take with film
I like Berger's theory of internalization, externalization
1:26 PM me: you know that is Berger's retelling of Marx's dialectic of production - worker makes product and becomes alienated from it though the process of production
1:27 PM Holly: yes
me: but back to the novel. it seems to me that the novel has a particular place in history
Holly: but the idea that a person consumes the product - that is important
1:28 PM novels both document and create history
me: it's kind of like the car... you don't have it until the 20th century...with the novel you don't really have it in full force until the 19th century
Holly: yes - but you had things that led up to it
1:29 PM the stage led to the novel, as well as the essay, the sermon, the poem and the song
me: yes, certainly biblical literature, as well as greek and roman epics lead up to it
1:30 PM The stage...the play
uh huh... is a novel a private 5 act play?
Holly: it is the frustration
poem are too short, sermons too dusty, and plays not internal enough
1:31 PM and, yes, too corporate
me: the european epic to clunky
Holly: the novel is a drawing room intrigue laid bare
a false memoir
me: yes the novel comes to rise after europe is tired of trying to organize communities to act their ideas
Holly: yes
1:32 PM I think I see what you mean
me: the novel also needs the printing press, where the play doesn't
Holly: it is the individual, not the chorus
yes
but with the enlightenment, the emphasis placed on internal reason...
you can't just show after that
you have to let the reader into the mind
1:33 PM since that is what "really matters"
me: wow, this is the question, or the impulse that lead to the unconscious
1:34 PM since the novel is the presentation of one's own imagination, housed in the mind, plus one's own theory of external organization - say Jane Austen's communities and the play of marriage
1:35 PM Holly: yes
1:36 PM me: it can't be wholly about the social, or the community, it has to also be about the depth and complexity of ones internal realm. it has to be exibihitionist
Holly: it is the digesting of what is around you - not the Truth, but the digested matter
people cannot get away from their showing roots
they still must show
but the mode of shoing is different
me: this is why scatological tropes are so common
1:37 PM Holly: through the novel, you can create a play, but you get more than action to do it with
that is why film bridges the gap - it is a play, but with tighter angles so you can show the internal, as well
1:38 PM me: well shakespeare certainly had more then action. Hamlets whole to be or not to be is internal reasoning at its finest
Holly: yes, but it is still rare and short
with a novel, there is more room to develope
and you don't have to rely on artificail things like silloquies
1:39 PM Shakespeare is to the novel as musicals are to personal films
me: so beyond the psychological and the formal, what has to be happening in your state to create a novel?
1:40 PM Holly: a need to express
me: I'm thinking that the novel is tied to the rise of nationalism in europe
Holly: a need to reflect what you see
a need to find others who feel the same
perhaps a need to pursuade
me: perhaps reflect is the wrong word, maybe dominate would do better?
1:41 PM yes, a need to persuade one to your way of thinking... this must come after everyone's unified, catholic way of thinking has been ruptured
1:42 PM Holly: well, that is the function of the nation state
me: The novel is a protestant apolegetic invention
Holly: to unifiy individuals
me: it is made to create communities
audiences (here the parallel with film is strong, yet different)
1:44 PM so we started by saying that a novel was created by an individual who was not interested in organizing and persuading other individuals to take the time to act out their particular imaginative thing. Now we see that the novel does still have a communal impulse - it longs to draw people together under it in affirmation of the author's individual mastery of the known world and the interior drama of self.
1:45 PM It is the drive to political leadership internalized, privatized...
1:46 PM when margaret atwood travels around canada to audiences that gawk at her she is actual demonstrating her leadership of a certain community within a nation. She has created a party
1:48 PM Have you read mrs. Dalloway or seen the film the hours?
1:49 PM Holly: read
me: you know how she bustles around all day trying to create a party, which happens at the end...I think this is an analogy for the novel and its function in society
1:51 PM VW was trying to create an audience of readers, a party in both the upper class and political sense.
do you think this is the same with film?
1:52 PM Holly: maybe

Re-reading Casanova's Public Religions in the Modern World.

Re-reading Casanova's Public Religions in the Modern World.
While I think that Asad has done a sufficient job of poking holes in Casanova's argument about secularization, I find myself going back to Casanova's book. I'm back here because I think that C's argument covers a lot of ground and I find myself continually playing with the dichotomy of public and private. On this topic, Casanova quotes Seyla Benhabib:
"SB has shown that the liberal model of "public dialogue" and its "neutrality" rule impose certain "conversational restraint," which tend to function as a "gag rule," excluding from public deliberation the entire range of matters declared to be "private" - from the private economy to the private domestic sphere to private norm formation." (65)

I think SB is right on here. I've been trying to track down her essay, rather then read it second hand. I wonder where an electronic version might be hiding out?

Uncle Kurt

Amanda and I returned from our trip to find out that her uncle Kurt, who stayed back from the wedding because he had just started a new job, passed away last Sunday. Yes, it was the Sunday of the wedding, for which his wife, Cathy, organized the flowers. She didn't find out that Kurt had died until Tuesday night when she came home to a policeman and her pastor waiting for her. Kurt was 55 and had recently begun jogging again. He had been jogging when he took a massive heart attack and passed away, alone, out by an old scout camp. The family was with us in Colorado, that is accept for his daughter Amber, who was teaching ESL in Nepal, and his other daughter Victoria, who, I believe, was in summer classes. None of the four children were there to say goodbye to their father, nor should they have expected that he would not be there when they returned. His death has been a giant shock to all of the family. Kurt will be missed.

It is the missing that I find most moving now, and I am not around his home, where his touch, presence, and intentions effected everything. It is this his lack that changes their world. I am off to the airport to pick up Amber and visit with the family.

In a presentation at the Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, Gadamer once said that the thing-in-itself is only fully known when it is gone from the environment in which it was known. Loss gives a thing a sense of completeness. Kurt was not a thing. He was a human being, but I think that I do perceive the form of Kurt more vibrantly now then at any point in his life.

One thing I will remember about Kurt was when he took me under his wing during a footwashing ceremony at his local SDA church. It was quite touching, and i was glad to enter into such a humble ritual with the man. I am proud to say my feet were washed by Kurt.