Thursday, January 24, 2008
Exiled and Imperfect: Thoughts on Beauty
So I've been reading several books of late, among them: Jacques Maritain's essay Art and Scholasticism -- which you can read online here (the one benefit being the hyperlinked footnotes; and endlessly better than the large print book I mistakenly ordered and now possess). It's a rich and influential essay, empowering the likes of O'Connor, Percy and several more Catholic writers in the middle of last century. I recommend it with the caveat that it is not an easy read, not simple and thoroughly challenging.
One of the more salient discourses I came across is the the fifth chapter on Art and Beauty. Maritain has taken great pains to put into words the aesthetic and unquantifiable weight of Beauty -- what it is and what it represents, to the artist first, and to the perceiver of art. I was most struck by the notion that Baudelaire presents:
"it is this immortal instinct for the beautiful which makes us consider the earth and its various spectacles as a sketch of, as a correspondence with, Heaven."
I like this notion. That beauty, and what is beautiful, is a sort of window into Heaven. I remember a great speaker, Dennis Kinlaw, in chapel during college who talked about this idea. He said that if there were to be a Heaven, and all it's classical notions of being greater than this world, we should, at the very least, expect it to leak into this world. Expect to see evidences of it here and there and around us. Little windows into the great, wide expanse of a greatness we cannot very well handle in our present world (cf. Chesterton's take on the levity of angels).
But more than the windows we can look through it is our desire, the artists desire to search and seek and pine for these glimpses. Baudelaire goes on to say the following:
"We have still a thirst unquenchable. thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above.... And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not... through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys of which, through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses."
The moth for the star. Not just a flicker of a flame on a candle, a burning, roaring fire, a conflagration of a forest, a STAR. The moth for a burning, firing, flaming, bundle of gas and beauty and danger. The moth for a star. So may we seek after beauty in and around.
One of the more salient discourses I came across is the the fifth chapter on Art and Beauty. Maritain has taken great pains to put into words the aesthetic and unquantifiable weight of Beauty -- what it is and what it represents, to the artist first, and to the perceiver of art. I was most struck by the notion that Baudelaire presents:
"it is this immortal instinct for the beautiful which makes us consider the earth and its various spectacles as a sketch of, as a correspondence with, Heaven."
I like this notion. That beauty, and what is beautiful, is a sort of window into Heaven. I remember a great speaker, Dennis Kinlaw, in chapel during college who talked about this idea. He said that if there were to be a Heaven, and all it's classical notions of being greater than this world, we should, at the very least, expect it to leak into this world. Expect to see evidences of it here and there and around us. Little windows into the great, wide expanse of a greatness we cannot very well handle in our present world (cf. Chesterton's take on the levity of angels).
But more than the windows we can look through it is our desire, the artists desire to search and seek and pine for these glimpses. Baudelaire goes on to say the following:
"We have still a thirst unquenchable. thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above.... And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not... through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys of which, through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses."
The moth for the star. Not just a flicker of a flame on a candle, a burning, roaring fire, a conflagration of a forest, a STAR. The moth for a burning, firing, flaming, bundle of gas and beauty and danger. The moth for a star. So may we seek after beauty in and around.
Friday, January 18, 2008
My People And Your People: Scheduling
Schedules are funny thing; you hardly ever think about them, take the time to realize your on a schedule. But we are. We operate, not in the banal and mundane effects of adhering to a schedule, out of a routine of which we are mainly unawares. Meals, bathroom breaks, snacks, T.V., commutes, events: they all go according to set times and dates; and so go our own lives. I suppose I always, somewhere, recognized this truism; but it never affected me until this month.
Out of the graciousness of my heart I agreed to shift my work schedule three days a week. Don't see me as too altruistic however when I tell you that the shift allows me to train on directing higher profile things that inevitably give me a greater and newer skill set. Still, I'm working nights for three days. In doing this, I miss my most coveted time with my family.
I suppose I never realized it. How much dinners and baths and story time and the house silences at bedtime really means to me. How special and crucial it is to my makeup. How apart of my daily schedule it is. But for three days a week I miss out on that.
However, I do get the ever-fantastic mornings with Isaac: where he is arguably at his best and funniest and most energetic. Where the car-rides, shopping trips, babysitters, other people, phone calls and meals have not gotten in the way. When he has awoken from whatever fantastic dream danced through his head with laughter and excitement: "It's a new day, Daddy! Good Morning!" That's what it feels like he says to me while he is shaking his crib as I enter the room while the sleep shakes from his eyes. And then he sits down and laughs as I go to pull him from his bed. Just laughs, giggles and smiles. Looks up at me with excitement. This is how we begin the day.
And when I go to work, I look forward to the mornings. But I miss the evenings too. The incessant water-splashing that soaks us; the running around from one activity to another to stave off sleep; the talking and telling us about his day in a language that is so clear to him.
So this schedule goes for a month. And then I will miss the mornings again.
But life, no matter the schedule, is never routine. This I have loved most of all. Despite how routine we need to make things for Isaac and our benefits; how things need to be set in schedules with times and places and calculations. It is in this, this management of life, that the most delightful freedom occurs. Call it a paradox, but it remains. The trick, talent, necessity, I suppose, is to see not the time, but the Time.
And it will make all the difference.
Out of the graciousness of my heart I agreed to shift my work schedule three days a week. Don't see me as too altruistic however when I tell you that the shift allows me to train on directing higher profile things that inevitably give me a greater and newer skill set. Still, I'm working nights for three days. In doing this, I miss my most coveted time with my family.
I suppose I never realized it. How much dinners and baths and story time and the house silences at bedtime really means to me. How special and crucial it is to my makeup. How apart of my daily schedule it is. But for three days a week I miss out on that.
However, I do get the ever-fantastic mornings with Isaac: where he is arguably at his best and funniest and most energetic. Where the car-rides, shopping trips, babysitters, other people, phone calls and meals have not gotten in the way. When he has awoken from whatever fantastic dream danced through his head with laughter and excitement: "It's a new day, Daddy! Good Morning!" That's what it feels like he says to me while he is shaking his crib as I enter the room while the sleep shakes from his eyes. And then he sits down and laughs as I go to pull him from his bed. Just laughs, giggles and smiles. Looks up at me with excitement. This is how we begin the day.
And when I go to work, I look forward to the mornings. But I miss the evenings too. The incessant water-splashing that soaks us; the running around from one activity to another to stave off sleep; the talking and telling us about his day in a language that is so clear to him.
So this schedule goes for a month. And then I will miss the mornings again.
But life, no matter the schedule, is never routine. This I have loved most of all. Despite how routine we need to make things for Isaac and our benefits; how things need to be set in schedules with times and places and calculations. It is in this, this management of life, that the most delightful freedom occurs. Call it a paradox, but it remains. The trick, talent, necessity, I suppose, is to see not the time, but the Time.
And it will make all the difference.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Confession: A Lack of Books
Seems every January I discover the joy of reading anew; before it is sullied and sodded over by the perennial progressions of life. The thirst for flipping pages comes almost as fast as one can digest the previous page. It's onset is voracious and at once satiable provided the author, the work and the coffee is good. And here we are again, January 2008.
A great difficulty -- and perhaps apropos -- is the lack of a bookstore in Grove City. Our previous home proffered at least three within 2 minutes. Now it takes 20+ to the nearest one, a Barnes and Noble just past the boundaries of work. Herein lies the rub: I ventured past my normal exit for the oasis in the desert of my thirst only to leave defeated and deflated. I'm looking for Augustine's Confessions which I have not yet read (City of God, yes; Confessions, no). There was one noticeable copy in the Christianity section, a small print, small bound, fancy smancy covered booklette that could slide into my back pocket. It looked more appropriate for a coffee table or coaster than as the great work of art it is. There were no other copies. Not even the assistance of the clerk could help. Even after I explained to here my snobbishness in wanting a copy bigger than my hand, one I could curl up with and perhaps into if it were big enough, not one that required me to peer at. She understood; I think. But our search on computers and by hand in other sections like Philosophy and Literature found nothing other than that. Then I checked the biography section on a whim -- and there it was: a hardcover, Burgundy coated immaculate copy. I was elated. Until I found out it cost $30.
Now hear my hypocritical stance: I demand bookstores carry books like these and not biographies of Lorraine Bracco or 101 Cups of Spirituality that go great with a side of Chicken soup and fluff (fluff being the stuff on most of the shelves in the Christianity section). But I also demand they be inexpensive and refuse to buy them if they are not, thus decreasing the revenue they account for thus resulting in their not being ordered and stocked.
$30 though? I can get it better somewhere else. Just not in Grove City.
So for now, in the stark coldness of my desert, under this ironic January sun, I am without a book. That is my confession: I feel a little incomplete and starved, wrong even, but unwilling to see past my own palette and wallet to satiate this desire.
A great difficulty -- and perhaps apropos -- is the lack of a bookstore in Grove City. Our previous home proffered at least three within 2 minutes. Now it takes 20+ to the nearest one, a Barnes and Noble just past the boundaries of work. Herein lies the rub: I ventured past my normal exit for the oasis in the desert of my thirst only to leave defeated and deflated. I'm looking for Augustine's Confessions which I have not yet read (City of God, yes; Confessions, no). There was one noticeable copy in the Christianity section, a small print, small bound, fancy smancy covered booklette that could slide into my back pocket. It looked more appropriate for a coffee table or coaster than as the great work of art it is. There were no other copies. Not even the assistance of the clerk could help. Even after I explained to here my snobbishness in wanting a copy bigger than my hand, one I could curl up with and perhaps into if it were big enough, not one that required me to peer at. She understood; I think. But our search on computers and by hand in other sections like Philosophy and Literature found nothing other than that. Then I checked the biography section on a whim -- and there it was: a hardcover, Burgundy coated immaculate copy. I was elated. Until I found out it cost $30.
Now hear my hypocritical stance: I demand bookstores carry books like these and not biographies of Lorraine Bracco or 101 Cups of Spirituality that go great with a side of Chicken soup and fluff (fluff being the stuff on most of the shelves in the Christianity section). But I also demand they be inexpensive and refuse to buy them if they are not, thus decreasing the revenue they account for thus resulting in their not being ordered and stocked.
$30 though? I can get it better somewhere else. Just not in Grove City.
So for now, in the stark coldness of my desert, under this ironic January sun, I am without a book. That is my confession: I feel a little incomplete and starved, wrong even, but unwilling to see past my own palette and wallet to satiate this desire.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
On The Holiness of Time
Time is not my friend; Time is not on my side. For the last two months, I have longed for the stretches of time where it just goes by -- where the clock peacefully passes. Instead, our lives have been one thing after another -- some magnificent, others magnified and difficult. But now the proverbial clearing lies under our feet. And time is the view before us.
My mind, previously filled with tasks-at-hands is unwinding, slowly. There are still chores and tasks and requirements, but not enough to fill each and every minute of the day. Turning the pages of a book and sipping hot coffee are not guilt-laden exercises for either of us -- they are pleasures.
There is the laughter I can enjoy on his time with a growing admiration and pride-- a laughter that has changed my life. There are the simple, quiet and tangible moments that are back. The evenings of music and books and conversation. Breakfasts and dinners that thrive. There is a sacredness now in the moments again.
Whether this creates in me further food for thought in this space, I do not promise. I make no resolutions. I give you no hope. I propose no direction other than the one already taken. And while there is much to write about along those lines, I am finding I have little to say for it.
Instead I am finding a time again I had had to forsake for life. Had to put it up and away like the decorations of the seasons. Walking past it in the mornings and evenings and occasionally taking it off the shelf long enough to catch a breath. But now she has come down from being admired and sought to being experienced and felt. Like bagels; like coffee; like meat and potatoes; like worn pages of typeset; like a soft voice echoing into the night; like the laughter and smile of the most innocent among us.
My mind, previously filled with tasks-at-hands is unwinding, slowly. There are still chores and tasks and requirements, but not enough to fill each and every minute of the day. Turning the pages of a book and sipping hot coffee are not guilt-laden exercises for either of us -- they are pleasures.
There is the laughter I can enjoy on his time with a growing admiration and pride-- a laughter that has changed my life. There are the simple, quiet and tangible moments that are back. The evenings of music and books and conversation. Breakfasts and dinners that thrive. There is a sacredness now in the moments again.
Whether this creates in me further food for thought in this space, I do not promise. I make no resolutions. I give you no hope. I propose no direction other than the one already taken. And while there is much to write about along those lines, I am finding I have little to say for it.
Instead I am finding a time again I had had to forsake for life. Had to put it up and away like the decorations of the seasons. Walking past it in the mornings and evenings and occasionally taking it off the shelf long enough to catch a breath. But now she has come down from being admired and sought to being experienced and felt. Like bagels; like coffee; like meat and potatoes; like worn pages of typeset; like a soft voice echoing into the night; like the laughter and smile of the most innocent among us.
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