Apropos Puccini and A.

Saturday the Met broadcast Pucinni's Il Trittico. "Suor Angelica" was absolutely incredible. "Senza Mamma" reduced me to tears, as I thought of A.

A, the Iranian woman who was baptized two weeks ago, is getting weaker and weaker. She hasn't been able to have chemo for two weeks now, and her platelets are at .5, so unless something miraculous occurs, she won't be having it any more at all.

Yesterday she wasn't there when the service began, and I wondered what was up. She stumbled in during the first hymn, tulips in hand. I settled her in under a blanket, replaced the roses with the tulips, and then held her throughout worship.

She is such a sick little lamb. She was going in and out on me, sometimes seeming to be delirious, sometimes muttering and sometimes actually speaking. My hearing isn't what it used to be so it was difficult for me to always make out what she was saying. Her breathing was rapid and shallow...H's gold cross around her neck barely moved. She was very thirsty, and drank two full cups of water. I have no idea what is going on inside her physically and can only guess at her pain. Yet at the end she snapped back when talking with Judy.

She keeps saying she is so tired. I honestly think the only things that are keeping her here are 1) Her 16 month old son, M. and 2) her desire to see her mother before she dies. Regarding 2) I'm trying to work on the possibility of skyping, so that she could talk and see her mom over the internet, the way we've been doing with Susan. That wouldn't be a problem on this end; but whether it could be accomplished on the Iran end is uncertain. Regarding 1), when her husband H. came to pick her up, he told me he was getting someone (a friend? I was unclear) from Oklahoma to come stay for the next six weeks and care for A and M. Perhaps that will help A see that her son can be provided for.

I don't want to deny the Lord's ability to work miracles, but I also want to make sure that A. is in a position to freely choose as peaceful a death as possible, if that is her choice. I know how important it is for cancer patients to "think positively." But isn't it also important at some point for them to be able to give themselves permission to cease treatment? It seems to me that A might be at that place. Am I assuming more than I should? Should I instead be encouraging her to continue fighting?

Ironic. Or better, providential. All those bioethics articles on death and dying are leaping to life around me, as well as and 1 Corinthians 15 and Plato's Phaedo. I am glad for the way the Lord has provided these texts as ballast for me in this situation, and pray he will use them in me to be a wise and comforting friend to A. Even more, I am grateful to Him and to the VCC congregation for help in shouldering this weight.

Saturday night I got to hear the Puccini Messa di Gloria at the Hult. It ends with the beautiful duet for bass and tenor:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

A. has Butterfly's tenacity, Mimi's fragility, Liu's courage.

She also has Jesus.

Lord, grant A. peace.

Mass ADD?

More reason to think our society is suffering from mass ADD (or that I am a curmudgeon--take your pick! !)


(From Abet, 4/26/07:) "Book review: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (2007).. this book is about what makes ideas memorable, spreadable, and motivating -- "sticky." What makes message sticky is summed up in the slightly goofy acronym SUCCES:



"Simplicity. Can it be expressed in a very few pithy words?"
In other words, Hemingway prevails. If it's not a sound byte, I won't pay any attention. Anything longer than than five words is too much for me to remember. And puh-leez, don't ask me to memorize anything, especially scripture.

"Unexpectedness. Is it surprising?"
In other words, I don't need to pay any attention to anything that bores me, so you must constantly find ever new ways to shock me into paying attention to you. You must earn my attention; I'm not under any obligation to listen to you.

"Concreteness. Is it real or theory?"
In other words, Marx was right, seeing things far more clearly than Plato, Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas: praxis is everything. If it works, it's gotta be true. Anything else is ivory tower and so I don't have to pay attention to it.

"Credibility. Is there a good reason for people to believe it? "
In other words, Maritain was wrong. Epistemology does come before metaphysics. Doubt trumps wonder. Clifford was right, and (to paraphrase Garrison Keillor) "we're all Evidentialists now."

"Emotions. Does it make people care at a gut level?"
In other words, Plato was wrong and Hume was right: we "think" with our guts.

"Stories. Can it be expressed in a narrative way?"
In other words, we don't have any other way to hear you except how we've been conditioned by TV, a medium better known for sitcoms and crime dramas than debates.

The enemy is the "Curse of Knowledge" -- we know our stuff too well, so we fail to communicate clearly to those who know less than we do.
(That's the number-one reason for weak fundraising!)

Possibly. But could it also be that those we seek to communicate with have ADD? That's not to say that we shouldn't keep trying to communicate! But at some point, those we communicate with need to know that they may have a learning disability, and if so, they need to develop skills to overcome it.

Transhumanism: What may lie ahead

"The Young Family," by Patricia Piccinini

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Young_Family.jpg

as well as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

More of Piccinini's work, including "Still Life with Stem Cells" can be seen at http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/wearefamily/index.php?sec=yf&pg=01

The following is a statement by User:Patriciapiccinini about the work:

The Young Family (2002-3) presents a transgenic creature. The inspiration behind this work is the expectation that we have of growing human organs in other species, especially pigs. Rather than make a didactic image that argues for or against these technologies, I want to address the reality of these possible creatures in a very compassionate way.

The question I raise, that I am interested in, relates to the distinction between human and animal characteristics: Not so much her humanity, but the 'animalness' in us. Genetically, we share traits with her, but also we share the fundamental trait of looking after offspring.

I am interested in the kinds of ways that we look at the many ethical issues that surround medical technologies. There are two kinds of people who are thinking about these issues; those who are objective observers, and those that are actually affected by the issues, such as somebody who has a family member who is affected by a disease. These two viewpoints are often very different. It is impossible to be objective about these issues when you are emotionally involved, but I don't think that is a bad thing.

These are not simple issues with easy answers: It is one thing to talk about an idea and another to be confronted by the emotional reality of a creature, and yet another to be in need of what that creature might provide.

NOTE: This image is copyrighted. The copyright holder allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that this promotional image of a work of art is properly attributed. [I hope I've attributed correctly...if not, I would appreciate instruction in how to comply. --BB]

Worship Meditation for April 22

Almighty Father,
Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen,
we bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life.

We thank you for your Son
Jesus Christ,
through Whom all things were made,
and through Whom all things are being made new again.

Today we celebrate Jesus as the Living Word.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God,
Incarnate Word, Word made flesh.
He pitched his tent among us, and dwells among us even now
through the Holy Spirit, the giver of Life.

Today we confess that ours is a generation overwhelmed with human words.
We have constructed our own virtual world, which some of us prefer to your creation.
We are flooded with information, consumed by conversation.

One of our poets once wrote that our words
“strain. Crack and sometimes break;
slip, slide, perish,
They decay with imprecision, do not stay in place,
and will not stay still.”

But your Word isn’t like that at all.
Our words strain, crack and sometimes break,
But Your Word is living, and active.

Our words slip, slide and perish,
But your Logos is enduring, faithful and True.

Our words decay with imprecision,
they do not stay in place, and will not stay still.
But Your Word stands forever.

Today we praise you for your powerful and gracious Word,
and ask that He might dwell in us richly.

Today we confess that we do not live by bread alone ,

but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.
Enable us to taste and see His goodness, we pray.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Culture: Filter or Foundation?

# 1 in an occasional series, "Behind the Buzzwords"

This was originally composed over a year ago. Going through my files it seemed worth thinking about again.

Along with "passion," Culture is another hot word these days. Last night after a fine dinner and conversation with the Taloyos, I came home pondering "culture." Rob Johnston proposes that it be added to the Wesleyan quadrilateral (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesleyan_Quadrilateral )

because he sees it just as important as Reason, Tradition, Experience and Scripture in the Christian life and theological reflection. I've been chewing on that for a while now.

In good analytic fashion, I think we must first define our terms. Wikipedia lists four possible definitions of culture:
1) culture= civilization, as opposed to nature (this one is pretty much passe)
2) culture=worldview
3) culture= values, norms and artifacts
4) culture = patterns of products and activities
But what about culture as Wittgenstein's "language game?" or MacIntyre's narrative and practices? Worldview might include these, I suppose...

Another thought: IMO it seems that just as modernism idolized reason, so postmodernism idolizes culture. The pendulum always swings to the opposing extreme. Having spent over two centuries under the spell of Reason, are we doomed now to spend a century charmed by multiculturalism? And after that, what?

Culture is no more solid a foundation than Reason to stake one's life upon, yet we seem to be perpetually tempted to confuse filters with foundations. Both Reason and Culture can be helpful filters in life, enabling us to focus on important aspects of our experience and order it in order understand ourselves, the world, and ultimately God. But--in our sinfulness? -- we demand more: we want to make these filters into foundations. Rather than "seeing through" them to what is real and good and true, we make them into ends in themselves: we idolize them as what is real and good and true. The lie of modernism's idolization of Reason is to say that the particulars doen't matter; the lie of Postmodernism's idolization of culture is to say that universals don't exist.

Pearls Before Swine

"Joshua Bell is one of the world's greatest violinists. His instrument of choice is a multimillion-dollar Stradivarius. If he played it for spare change, incognito, outside a bustling Metro stop in Washington, would anyone notice?"

This article was given to me by an EBC student in "Introduction to Ethics," on the heels of our discussion about utilitarianism. I am going to mention it tomorrow in "Marx" at NCC, when we read Leisure, the Basis of Culture. It would seem that many Americans are content not only to be proletariats, but philistines as well.

I agree with Josef Pieper: the goal isn't all to become proletariats; instead, the goal is to de-proletariatize: to become human so we can "be taken from the toil of the work-day to an endless day of celebration; to be rapt from the confines of the working environment into the very Center of the world," to dwell with Him who is the source of all beauty, truth and goodness.

A long, but powerful article. Stay with it to the very end.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721_pf.html

Akathist of Creation for Creation Sunday

This Sunday at Valley Covenant, Steve is thinking about using part of the Creation Akathist, "Glory to God for All Things"to observe Creation Sunday.

According to OrthodoxWiki, this hymn is often attributed to Priest Gregory Petrov who died in a Soviet prison camp in 1940, but also to Metropolitan Tryphon (Prince Boris Petrovich Turkestanov) +1934. The title is from the words of St. John Chrysostom as he was dying in exile. It is a song of praise from amidst the most terrible sufferings.

Steve selected and arranged parts of it as a responsive reading, pasted below.

If anyone's interested in the whole enchilada, they can go here:
http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article8228.asp

CREATION AKATHIST HYMN

(parts selected and arranged responsively; N= north side of congregation, S=south side. From the Eastern Orthodox Church.)

All: Incorruptible Lord, your right hand controls the whole course of human life, according to the decrees of your Providence for our salvation.

We give you thanks for all your blessings, known and unknown:

N: for our earthly life and for the heavenly joys of your kingdom which is to come.

S: Henceforth extend your mercies towards us as we sing:

All: Glory to you, O God, from age to age!

I was born a weak, defenseless child, but your angel, spreading his radiant wings, guarded my cradle. From my birth, your love has illumined my paths, and has wondrously guided me towards the light of eternity. From my first day until now, the generous gifts of your providence have been wonderfully showered upon me. I give you thanks, and with all those who have come to know you, I exclaim:

N: Glory to you for calling me into being.

S: Glory to you for spreading out before me the beauty of the universe,

N: Glory to you for revealing to me through heaven and earth the eternal book of wisdom,

S: Glory to you for your eternity within this fleeting world,

N: Glory to you for your mercies, seen and unseen,

S: Glory to you for every sigh of my sorrow,

N: Glory to you for every step in my life's journey, for every moment of joy,

S: Glory to you, O God, from age to age.

All: O Lord, how lovely it is to be your guest:

N: Breeze full of scent; mountains reaching to the skies;

S: Waters like a boundless mirror,

N: Reflecting the sun's golden rays and the scudding clouds.

S: All nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing depths of tenderness,

N: Birds and beasts bear the imprint of your love,

S: Blessed are you, O earth, in your fleeting loveliness,

N: Which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last for ever

S: In the land where, amid beauty that grows not old,

All: Rings out the cry: Alleluia!

How glorious you are in the triumph of spring, when every creature awakes to new life and joyfully sings your praises with a thousand tongues: you are the source of life, the con­queror of death. By the light of the moon night­ingales sing: the plains and the woods put on their wedding garment, white as snow. All the earth is your promised bride awaiting her bridegroom who does not know decay. If the grass of the field is clothed like this, how glori­ously shall we be transfigured in the coming age of the resurrection: how radiant our bodies, how resplendent our souls!

N: Glory to you, bringing from the darkness of the earth an endless variety of colors, tastes and scents,

S: Glory to you for the warmth and tenderness of the world of nature,

N: Glory to you for surrounding us with thousands of your works,

S: Glory to you for the depth of your wisdom: the whole world is a living sign of it,

N: Glory to you: on my knees, I kiss the traces of your unseen hand,

S: Glory to you for setting before us the dazzling light of eternal life,

N: Glory to you for the hope of the unutterable, imperishable beauty of immortality,

S: Glory to you, O God, from age to age.

All: How filled with sweetness are those whose thoughts dwell on you: how life-giving your holy Word; to speak with you is more soothing than anointing with oil, sweeter than the honeycomb. Praying to you refreshes us and gives us wings: our hearts overflow with warmth; a majesty filled with wisdom permeates nature and all of life! Where you are not, there is only emptiness. Where you are, the soul is filled with abundance, and its song resounds like a torrent of life: Alleluia!

A's Baptism

This morning I think I got to feel a little of what the Lord's heart must be like.

Today I taught Cornerstone, and drew the story of David and Bathsheba. Tough, as J. and her daughter were there. I prayed to have grace to speak the truth in love, and not add to their pain.

Then came worship. I don't think it is wise that I use real names, because the persons I am writing about are Iranian, but today "A." was baptized and her husband "H." came, along with his ex-in-laws. H. is a sayed, meaning that he traces his lineage to Mohammed's family. He came with A. for Easter services but has said all along that he would not attend her baptism. A. has stage IV stomach cancer, and this was her greatest wish, that H. would witness her baptism.

Lo and behold, today H. was there, with the children from his first marriage and their grandparents (mother's side)! He had a lovely pink azalea for the piano, a german chocolate cake with "Congratulations, A." on top, and a gold cross and chain necklace for her after the service.

Steve asked A. if she had anything she wanted to say before going into the hot tub. (What spirit--even though she is in great pain, she insisted she wanted to be immersed, so we rented a hot tub and brought it into the sanctuary!) "I want to say that I have cancer, and that it doesn't matter what happens to me, now that I have Jesus." Wow. Not a dry eye in the entire congregation.

My heart was overflowing with joy. H. is an extraordinary man, and has shattered all my preconceptions about Muslim marriage. He clearly loves A. very, very much. J. took all this in, in light of her own situation, and noted how remarkable it was. And that broke my heart.

A. has discovered what is really important. I trust J's husband will, too. This from William Willamon came to mind:

I'm glad this story is in the Bible because it lets us know that unhappiness, tragedy, regret are part of loving and living in a family. It was true for King David; it is true at your house and mine.

We're in a mess, particularly in our families. There is regret and things don't turn out as we planned. We can't get everything together. We can't make it all work out right. If we are hurt by our own families, how much more must God be hurting for the faults and foibles of God's whole human family? What is to become of David's troubled family, or ours?

A cross is raised outside of the capital city. Upon it hangs a beloved son, hanging there not because of his rebellion against his father, but rather because of our rebellion. The Father gives everything for his kingdom, even his own Son. The cross does not set everything right. The cross does not erase the seriousness of the evils we commit. Rather, the cross forgives and makes it possible for life to continue, despite the tragedy. David said that he would have given his life to save his son from death. But even kings can't do that. No, it takes a God to do that. At Calvary, on the cross, God's whole, tragic human family was gathered, embraced, saved by a Father who, in grief, loves us yet.

----William Willimon (Dean of Duke University Chapel)
http://www.chapel.duke.edu/worship/sunday/viewsermon.aspx?id=30

Susan's term ends at Oxford

Just finished talking with Susan on Skype. Her papers are written, she is out of the Vines, her farewells are done. She sounds tired and very, very sad. It will be difficult for her to leave this mountaintop, I fear. But I am so thankful that she has had this opportunity, to live and study in such a rich atmosphere, and to relate to people who share her passions. I hope some of them will pass through Eugene this summer so we can all meet.

How appropriate that Susan's final service at St. Mary Magdelene's was Easter. "Noli me tangere:"

Noli me tangere is the Latin version of the words spoken, according to the Gospel of John, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene, meaning "touch me not" (the quotation appears in John 20:17). Literally the phrase means "Do not want to touch me". The words were a popular trope in Gregorian chant, and the moment in which they were spoken was a popular subject for paintings.
It has been argued by Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John/The New International Commentary on the New Testament) that the Greek original (Μή μου πτου) is better represented by a translation of cease from holding on to me or stop clinging to me, signifying that Jesus is saying that although he is risen he has not returned in the same form that he left. He will soon ascend and will presage the sending of the Spirit. --Wikipedia

Lord, bring her abundant life.

Marx the Prognosticator

Hmmm. We'll be reading this Friday in PHL407:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertaintly and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere....

In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

--Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

"Seven Stanzas at Easter"

by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Telephone Poles and Other Poems © 1961 by John Updike. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc.

"East Coker," by T.S. Eliot

I love the Four Quartets. "East Coker" provides rich material for meditation on Good Friday:

III
O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.
You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.


IV
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good